Arts & Entertainment

~id r r 11*--

Memorial Day takes on new meaning for Jewish author — the wife of an active duty
Navy pilot — who chronicles the life of her family in a new book.

Suzanne Chessler

Special to the Jewish News

Alison Buckholtz

A

lison Buckholtz has long been
accustomed to traditional
family celebrations of Jewish
holidays, but she did not give the same
kind of attention to secular holidays.
That changed after she married and
gained extended family through the
military.
Buckholtz, the wife of a Navy pilot
and mother of two, has learned about
the loneliness of living in a military
community apart from a deployed
spouse, and she has developed a fresh
understanding of patriotism through
the shared experiences that bond ser-
vice families.
"Memorial Day has much more
meaning for me now," says Buckholtz,
39, who has written a series of personal
essays, some sold freelance, now con-
tained in her new book, Standing By:
The Making of an American Military
Family in a Time of War (Tarcher/
Penguin; $23.95).
"I try to take the time to remember
the people we know personally who are
involved in the [ongoing] conflict [in
Iraq and Afghanistan], and I think back
to people in the past who have lost their
lives. I really do take the idea of honor
and sacrifice a lot more seriously.
"I like to think that the terms 'honor'
and 'sacrifice' have more currency in
our culture than they would have had
before 9-11. They certainly have more
currency for me."
Buckholtz, essentially unaware of the

"Lying in bed the night before he
deployed ... we small-talked our
way through the pain, chatting
about the feast we'd gorged
on that night and chuckling
over the piggish absurdity
of trying to combine
Thanksgiving, Chanukah,
the Passover seder and both
kids' birthday celebrations into
one final meal together," writes the author.

impact of Jewish service members in
the military until meeting her husband-
to-be shortly before the terrorist attacks
on Sept. 11, 2001, brings her religious
outlook into the essays. She gives
insight into individual military house-
holds and the ways they link together
and support one another.
The book reports on her becoming
a Jewish lay leader, building a small
Jewish community and trying to trans-
mit religious values in the absence of
Jewish cultural institutions while living
on a military base far from a traditional
synagogue.
"I had a lot of faulty assumptions
about service members and their fami-
lies because I had no point of access
into the military," Buckholtz says. "We
didn't have any family members, neigh-
bors or friends who had ever served."
Buckholtz met her husband while
living in Washington, D.C. They moved
to the military base she describes in
Anacortes, Wash., because of an assign-
ment. Soon, she returned to D.C. with
their children (now ages 6 and 4) as
her husband left on a 14-month tour to
Iraq.
"I tried to close that civilian-military
divide through the book and bring
our experiences to the attention of

nonmilitary readers interested in
knowing what today's service families
go through," explains the author, who
maintains a Web site, StandingByBook.
corn. The Web site includes a video,
"Homecoming Day," which brings to life
the mixed emotions children experience
when a parent returns from deploy-
ment.
Buckholtz, a communications special-
ist before marrying, sold her singular
essays to various publications. One,
appearing in the New York Times, tells
about "Flat Daddy," a life-size, card-
board cutout created to soothe very
young children when a parent is away.
By telling about the emotions of her
own children and the military children
she has known, the author explores the
depression and distress often suffered
during long-term parental absences.
She goes on to describe the different
coping strategies used by moms and
dads remaining at home and taking on
dual roles.
Buckholtz found that the increasing
publication of her essays made other
spouses feel free to open up about their
personal vulnerabilities.
"I mostly wrote the book during the
seven months of my husband's deploy-
ment in 2007-2008," explains Buckholtz,

who gained approval before alluding
to others, many grown into close
friends.
"After the kids went to bed every
night, I sat on the couch with my
laptop and wrote until midnight. I
reflected on our past issues and what
we were going through in real time.
"It was important to me that the
book remain honest, but I did not want
to expose anyone's secrets. I certainly
didn't want to betray anyone's trust."
The author, who talks about bringing
other Jewish military families into her
home for holiday celebrations, wanted
to call attention to Jewish service that
took place with honor and valor.
"I've talked to many Jews explaining
that they serve in the American mili-
tary as a way of paying their country
back for grandfathers or great-grand-
fathers assimilated into American cul-
ture," she says. "They wanted to thank
this country for everything done for
their relatives, and the stories were very
moving."
She is quick to note that she and her
husband have found the military to
be "welcoming and open to families
from many different backgrounds. As a
result, achievement and character can
often transcend stereotypes," she says.
"When discussions about religion
have come up, those curious about
Judaism have asked us thoughtful and
respectful questions that we were happy
to answer."
Buckholtz is very heartened by
Michelle Obama's interest in help-
ing military families, and she hopes
the first lady will address some of the
issues referenced in Standing By.
While Buckholtz talks about situa-
tions unique to military families, she
also is able to view them with a wider
perspective. She relates them to the
inevitable crises all families eventually
face.
"More than anything else, this is a
story of our family and the difficult
times we went through," says Buckholtz,
strengthened by the knowledge her
husband gets top-notch training for the
responsibilities he faces. "It's also about
how we got to know each other in new
and surprising ways."

❑

May 21 . 2009

A59

