AUTHOR GIVING A BOOK SIGNING AT RENEWALS BOOK STORE, WASHINGTON STREET, NEW SMYRNA BEACH, FLORIDA

I am giving a book signing for my book, Interrupted Journeys: A Memoir of an Army Brat, on Saturday, March 11th, from 11 am to 2 pm at the Renewals Book Store in New Smyrna.

BARBARA FIFIELD GIVING TALK TO VETERANS' ASSOCIATION

On Monday, February 27th at 2 pm, the author will be giving a talk regarding her book, Interrupted Journeys: A Memoir of an Army Brat, to the Father Charles Waters Post 1962 of the Catholic War Veterans at the Emory L. Bennett Veterans Nursing Home on Mason Avenue in Daytona Beach. She will discuss memories of her childhood as an army brat in the service and living in Germany, Japan, and different States of the USA.

ARMY KIDS HAVE MANY FRIENDS

A positive outcome from the many travels and moves a military family makes are the many friends which family members make. Sometimes military children are almost forced to make friends due to having lost the friends they had during the last move. I, for example, learned to make friends easily and to this day, I make friends easily with strangers due to my many changes in addresses, states and countries which I soon grew used to. Below is a picture of my sister, Marilyn and myself with Jimmy McGuiness, a kid who lived across the street from us in Heidelberg, Germany. Jimmy's dad was a lieutenant colonel, my father, a major. Jimmy often joked with me about his father being higher ranked than mine, even if by only one grade.

ALCOHOL FACTORING IN FAMILY DYNAMICS IN THE MILITARY

Many military families suffer from the huge presence of alcohol in their families. Much drinking takes place due to the stresses of the military style of life because of frequent relocations, usually every year or two, and adjusting to different cultures wherever the family lives. New languages, climates, friends, schools, etc., impact the families' lifestyles. I know in my own family where my father was a major in the army this was so. My mother had to raise my sister and me by herself while Dad was undergoing training in different states or overseas for up to two years. She had to manage with one income as most women didn't work in the fifties. Because she often didn't have enough money to pay the bills as she depended on Dad to mail her money, we often went without even though he was an officer. When he was in Iran for two years, for example, she wrote him a letter in desperation once over this splitting of his income, and officers got paid less back in those days than they do now. also, officers' wives weren't supposed to work back then as it was a cultural thing for them not to. Today, officers get paid more;however, there are additional problems with the greater use of psychoactive medications and prevalence of street drugs in our culture, mostly used by teenagers. Today's military families face even greater stresses. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq really haven't helped the matter, any! With more fighting women and men being stationed overseas, I perceive even more problems with alcohol and drugs than before. Much of this, of course, has been hushed by the military in order to maintain respect for our fighting men and women overseas. The sign of modern times.