Embedded on the Home Front Where Military and Civilian Lives Converge

Contents -- Introduction -- Yellow Ribbons (Nancy McAllister) -- In One of the Stars I Shall Be Living (Melanie Murray) -- We Are (a Military) Family (Kelly Thompson) -- Falling for a Soldier: The Battle Lines of a Love Triangle (Shaun Hunter) -- Coming Home to a New World (Ryan Flavelle) -- Snapshots: Life, Peace and Coffee on the Home Front (Ellen Kelly) -- The Reservist (Barb Howard) -- Hostage to Fate (Michael Hornburg) -- Reconstruction Tour (Scott Waters) -- Finding My Way Backto Some Kind of Normal (Jill Kruse);Home front. It's hard to separate that word from war. In the First and Second World Wars, the home front was a clear entity and location: if you weren't on the frontlines, you were on the home front. But during current times of peacekeeping, peacemaking and armed interventions, the notion of home front seems to comprise only those who are in some way directly affected by the military: family and friends of soldiers, returning soldiers or ex-soldiers--an invisible group camouflaged by everyday jobs and activities. Editors Barb Howard and Joan Dixon have compiled insightful essays and reflections from 14 writers, including Melanie Murray, Scott Waters, Ryan Flavelle and Chris Turner. All have found themselves, at one time or another, embedded on the home front. And even though each experience is unique and comes from a single perspective, common motifs surface: family, fate, death and memory. This anthology captures triumphs, incredible fortitude and humour, often in the face of grief, as well as the complicated logic, fears, anger and other everyday realities that are part of home-front life.