‘No Man’s War’ Captures the Struggles and Strengths of Army Wives

July 17, 2014 - Posted By mjones

We’re excited to read Angela Rickett’s new memoir, No Man’s War, which casts an irreverent eye on the struggles of army wives.

In No Man’s War, writer and army wife Angela Ricketts writes about the responsibilities of being an officer’s wife and the difficulties she faced during her husband’s deployments.

Ricketts’ husband was deployed eight times — four of them to Iraq or Afghanistan. Today, he’s a colonel in homeland defense, and they live in Colorado Springs, Colo.

While army wives are typically portrayed as strong and stoic in the media, Ricketts writes candidly about the toll her husband’s deployments took on their marriage and the raising of their three children.

“After the first really wretched, wretched deployment, each one after that you become a little more removed — a little more numb to the feelings,” Ricketts said in an interview on NPR yesterday. “That kind of blackens your soul. We joke about that. Army wives say, ‘Channel the black soul, honey.’ “

You can read an excerpt from No Man’s War on NPR. You can buy a copy of the book on Amazon. To learn more about Angela Ricketts, visit her website.