Bannerman is very honest about her own insecurities and flaws, which excuses some of her excesses as her principles and reality battle – such as when she actually tells her husband that she wants him to imagine her face if he ever has to point a gun at an Iraqi. It’s advice that, while nobly intended, could clearly get him killed, no matter what your politics are.
But as a writer, the candor makes Bannerman pretty captivating – she lays it all out, even when it doesn’t make her look very good. Her struggle with her husband’s mission is kind of America in miniature – beside her anti-war views, she has to deal with the simple pain of missing her husband and worrying about his fate.
She faces scorn from both sides - from military families who can’t handle her outspoken liberalism, and from peace activists who have a hard time with the fact that she’s also a military wife. “The concept of a peace activist being married to a military husband doesn’t work for me,” one friend writes Bannerman.
Bannerman’s writing is charged with her own very vocal anti-war views. The frustration she feels leaps off the page; yet in the end, she accepts a tenuous truce with her husband’s battles. “I come to the realization that my love for him transcends my beliefs, and there are few things for which I would not forgive him,” Bannerman writes.
Article comments
1 - MCH
I can see it all now:
"Ghost Service At Dannelly Air Force Base; The Inside Story On How My Husband Skipped Out Of The Guards" by Laura Bush
2 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net, which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States. Nice work!