ter’s essays and doctoral theses will benfocused. Fred Hobson has chosen thisnforum and form to make sense of thencutting edge of Southern literature as itnis being created, in a work that isnmostly a pleasure and an edification.nJ.O. Tate is a professor of English atnDowling College on Long Island.nFortress Mentalitiesnby Gregory McNameenMilitary Bratsnby Mary Edwards WertschnNew York: Harmony Books;n452 pp., $20.00nOn the fringes of most Americanntowns of more than fifty thousandninhabitants lies an odd no-man’s-land.nRarely more than a few blocks long, thisnzone — identical in every region of thencountry—sports a complement of gogonbars, topless clubs, pawn shops,nliquor stores, a video arcade or two,ncheck-cashing joints, and barely disguisednhouses of prostitution. Bisectingnthis sector, always, is a broad avenuenleading to a military base. The zone’sndenizens are uniformed young mennand, lately, women, most barely out ofntheir teens; its permanent residents occupyntheir time coaxing dollars fromnthese soldiers’ pockets. Resident andnvisitor view each other with the formernsuspiciousness of East and WestnBerliners. The attitude runs deep, and itnhas old roots. Civilians and soldiersnnurture a reciprocal mistrust based onnfear, often manifested, even in thesenheady days following the Persian Gulfnadventure, in open contempt of the onenfor the other.nThere is a third class of citizen,nneither quite civilian nor military: thenchildren of the warriors, known in thenargot as “Army (or Navy, or Marine, ornAir Force) brats.” Their experiences arenquite unlike those of their civilian counterparts.nLike young people in ournembattled inner cities, most never enjoynthe carefree condition of childhood thatnis our supposed cultural norm. They arena band of gypsies millions strong, andnuntil now their existence has beennscarcely acknowledged.nMary Edwards Wertsch’s MilitarynBrats is a long-needed corrective thatngoes a long way toward explaining toncivilian society the demands it placesnnot only on its soldiers but on theirnoffspring, unbidden servants to thennation. Through that youthful bondage,nwe brats — my father, as did hisnfather, was graduated from West Pointnand served for the better part of threendecades as an Army officer — attain anculture like no other American minority’s.nAs Wertsch writes, we bear the longnmemory of uprootedness, separation,nalienation. Almost without exception,nwe spent a part of our childhoodnwithout fathers, for they had beenncalled away to war or other assignmentsnwhere their families could not follow.nWe moved often — in my case, 18ntimes in my first 13 years — and in thenprocess learned to form and abandonnfriendships instantly, to adopt to everynsort of social situation, to be the newnkid in school every few months. Mostnof us spent at least a few years overseas,nwhile our fathers patrolled the forestsnof the Fulda Gap or the airspaces overnnorthern Japan or the Caribbean.nOn the positive side, Wertsch rightlynnotes, this migratory way of life lent usna quickness with languages, strong socialnskills, a tolerance for foreign ways,nand, thanks to the multiethnic characternof the Armed Services, a notablenlack of racism. When billeted in civiliannschools, we sought to distinguishnourselves by wandering to the margins:nwe equally dominated the honor rollnand the ranks of juvenile delinquency,nin either case expressing a darker aspectnof our characters, a constant recognitionnof class hierarchy and need to setnourselves apart from the sons andndaughters of the unindentured. Raisednin the vast theater that is the military,nwhere personae are donned and doffednas the situation demands, we becamenconsummate actors.nThese attitudes, Wertsch writes, carrynover into adulthood. Few militarynbrats have many close friends; in thenwords of Pat Conroy (the Marine bratnwho wrote The Great Santini, thatntalismanic novel of childhood insidenthe Fortress), “we put down not rootsnbut vines.” Even those who turn awaynfrom the military, as so many of myngeneration did as a result of Vietnam,ncontinue to embody many of its traits: annncultivated seriousness, an obsessive attentionnto detail, a precision that breedsncompulsive perfectionism, and an unconcealedndislike for the indecisiventypes who, it seems to us, fill the highernechelons of civilian society. We follownour parents’ charge: Me and my Missionnagainst the world. Many of us, asnWertsch points out, refuse to follownnormal careers, valuing independencenover the regimented order of our earlynyears.nIn preparing her book, Wertsch interviewednhundreds of military brats,nmen and women in roughly equalnproportion; the best part of her booknlies in the revealing anecdotes thesenveterans have to tell. Anyone who grewnup in the military will recognize andneasily identify with their stories of dislocation,nof separateness, of yearning fornsome sort of stability; those who did notnwill likely finish reading Military Bratsnin a state approaching combat fatigue.nWertsch is herself an Army brat, thendaughter of a general whom she portraysnas an alcoholic, abusive disciplinarianncapable of only the rarest momentsnof tenderness. She tends,nregrettably, to universalize from herndysfunctional family’s experience, tonmake it emblematic of that of all warriors’nchildren. In truth, while the rigorsnof living in a constant state of combatnreadiness — and in a caste with a ratenof alcoholism three times that ofncivilian society — have left their mark,nmost of us managed to enter adulthoodnwith few psychological scars, thenhappy products of loving and, given thencircumstances, “normal” fathersnand mothers. Wertsch is also distressinglynreliant on now-outmoded varietiesnof Freudian psychoanalysis. Shenmay be one of the few students ofnhuman personality to continue to takenthe notion of the Oedipal complexnseriously.nFor all that. Military Brats “is anmirror for those who have as our ethicnthe warrior’s motto, “Prepare yourself,nfor you are the only refuge you can relynon.” Anyone who waved the yellownribbon a year ago will find in Wertsch’snstudy myriad reflections of the price ofntrue patriotism. Pier book merits a widenaudience on both sides of the noman’s-land.nGregory McNamee is a freelancenwriter in Tucson, Arizona.nJANUARY 1992/39n