Lost in the Stacks: The Wives

Join the Army? Why would anyone want to do that? Simone declared she would leave her boyfriend Andrew if he joined the military. Yet several years later and newly married to Andrew, Simone found herself at Fort Benning near Columbus, Georgia, waiting for her husband’s Special Operations unit to deploy to Afghanistan. She was an Army wife now. 

FRG. OPSEC. MASCAL. Simone’s new world was all acronyms and Army politics, which was utterly bewildering to the senior editor from New York City. She needed someone to guide her through the byzantine rules of Army World. Enter the wives. These women did not share the same politics or the same background as Simone, but they understood her terror of deployments. The anxiety of receiving a red message. The awfulness of being pregnant and having your husband thousands of miles away.  

The Wives: A Memoir by Simone Gorrindo is an unsparing look at the challenges and heartbreak of being a military spouse. Gorrindo candidly describes how PTSD, domestic violence and substance abuse affect military families. Yet this memoir is also a warmhearted love letter to the tough women, her found family, who helped her survive.