FLY SAFE: Letters from the Gulf War and Reflections from Back Home by Vicki Cody – Operation Desert Storm Military History, Military Families, Marriage

Not many people can capture the emotions that coincide with war, but Vicki Cody joins the ranks of those who do in her wartime memoir, Fly Safe: Letters from the Gulf War and Reflections from Back Home.

This powerful memoir shows us the behind-the-scenes lives of the women, children, and families left at home while their soldiers set off for war, bringing us close to their raw vulnerability. Fly Safe fascinates as it informs readers of what one wife experiences as her commander husband leads his battalion to the middle east.

Cody takes us back in time to the early 1990s when the first President Bush called up troops in an operation called “Desert Shield,” which turned into Desert Storm. She captures the events that led up to our first conflict in the middle east, but far from being strictly pedantic and historical, centers on the warmth, love, and fears that most of the wives were experiencing. Her letters from her husband – and her journal entries read like daily affirmations and blend well in telling this story.

The memoir shines as a first-person account of the ins-and-outs of a military family’s life during war.

Cody succeeds 99% of the time in duties that correspond to her husband’s, and she knows how to help other wives and her community. But in this memoir, we are privy to the times she falters.

We can’t be strong all the time. We can fake it – suppress, deny, and avoid our emotions – for only so long. Eventually, there is a trigger, a tipping point, and it all comes pouring out.

The reader becomes witness to the terror and fear of war, born from the first “real-time” news reporting of such a conflict. She expertly relays her first shock at seeing the footage of skirmishes on TV before her husband’s letters have reached her. It’s difficult for the contemporary reader to imagine a time before cell phones, WiFi, and constant connections. Her experience was marked by waiting for letters to arrive through the mail. Deployment into battle meant weeks of delays in postal delivery, and the not knowing would gnaw at your confidence until your mind almost breaks.

Through all the days and nights without her husband, the love story between them lies at the heart of the memoir.

Difficulties arise for most returning troops: the power struggles, the reconnection after the war, the acclimation to ordinary home life after battle – and the author does not hide these issues. What she shows us most of all is a brave man’s journey to war and a brave woman’s support and love to keep the home fires burning.

Military wives will recognize the feminine side of war shown here. The memoir is not about women going into battle in the literal sense, rather, what it is like for the wives as they navigate the real dangers of losing soulmates and the fathers of their children. Cody never loses sight of her obligations and considers them an honor to bear. In fact, her role in the war effort gives us a glimpse of how deployed troops’ wives coped.

The father’s military tradition continues as their sons grow up to follow in his footsteps.

The boys’ deployments to the middle east provide a glimpse into the role that a mother plays as her children are put in harm’s way to protect their homeland and our freedoms. Cody’s pride is evident in every word and line of this well-crafted memoir. We see it all through the eyes of the wife and mother, who relays her husband’s and son’s exploits with all the love, honor, respect, and pride that she holds in her heart.

This book is a boon to military wives and mothers whose sons go to battle for our country. It is also a boost of patriotism for those readers who do not have that connection to military life. It shows readers the raw emotions that drive the women left behind, and it does so with humor, tact, and most of all, love.