And now after words on booktv Elaine Lowry Brye mother of four military officers talk about what families go to during times of deployment, she discusses her book be safe, love mom a military moms stories of courage, comfort, and surviving life on the homefront with Patricia KimeSenior Writer for military times. Welcome. I am here with Elaine Lowry Brye to discuss safe, love mom a military moms stories of courage, comfort, and surviving life on the homefront. Welcome to washington. Thank you for being here to talk with me about it. Host tell me a bit about your book. Guest i never intended to write a book. What happened was in 2001, my oldest son headed to the Naval Academy and at that time to communicate with each other, just kind of connect and i began posting on that list. On 9 11 everything change. My son had gone to a Peacetime Navy and with in a few short hours everything changed and i began to write more. I would write about being encouraged and to remember our roots and ultimately imus asked to become a moderator suppose that started a series of 14 years of me advising, encouraging and supporting Naval Academy parents. Through this time i had two more children who decided to apply and attend the Naval Academys so as the years went by, not only did i have children at the Naval Academy, now head on active duty and parents that you need to write this down in the book, write this all down and as our life continued and twist and turns my husband after his airline declared bankruptcy lost his penchant he end ed up working for an airline in afghanistan. Followed him and taught for a year in afghanistan so i had this unique perspective of being a mom who had children deployed to afghanistan and now i was there in cobble at the same time our youngest son, the rubble, decided to joy when the military not through the Naval Academy but through army rotc and now i had four children, all serving. I had been in a war zone and when i came back the boat kept saying you need to write this down. First i would just write it down for my family and so i did and a parent said you need to do more than that with this and he contacted a publisher and the result is be safe, love mom. Host three goes to the Naval Academy, want this to the university of north dakota, one the rotc but all serving in different branches of the service. How did that come about . Guest when you go to the Naval Academy you can select the navy or the marine corps and there are a limited number of opportunities to Cross Commissions of my daughter end ed up Cross Commissioning to the air force primarily because she wanted to try to fly and she had a medical condition that was precluded her from doing that in the navy but the air force had different standards. She had an exchange at the air force academy. She also was very interested in space. Says she was allowed to make that Cross Commission. So it was a total fluke we end ed up with children in every branch. It was never intentional. It kind of fits with each of their passions and what they wanted to do in the active duty military service. Who do you feel your audience is for this book . My first audience is military moms, and dads, i get the emails from dad saying what about us . I know you care as deeply about your children but my first audience is mom. That they know that they are not alone that they can be encouraged and inspired and we can share information, and that is what were trying to do, build a community, and find information. We dont get Family Readiness briefings, we dont live on the base we dont get that support from the traditional military. That is my first audience, my second audience is greater community. I understand what this is like i want you to realize it is not the same as sending your children off to college. Are there a lot of differences . I want you to understand there are people around you that are carrying heavier burden than it may appear ended is what we do end to gladly because we love our country but it is a heavy burden. I have two audiences, i hope. Host you grew up in a military family. Your father served in army i believe ken 22 vietnam. You write a little bit about your experiences as a military child with your father deploying. Talk about that a bit. Guest i went to 12 different schools, my father was in the army signal corps. He met my mother when she was in the army as well so i joke that my First Military duty was giving my mother and Honorable Discharge because in those days you couldnt have a child and be a woman in the military. And so my fathers first tour in vietnam, he was an adviser and i was 8 years old. I joy and have a concept of what that meant except halfway through, there was the coup, the military took over the government and we started sending in troops and those things changed rapidly from then on. It was very difficult. I hear a lot of controversy about should troops i am like yes, troops need to be thanked. Everyone needs to be thanked. I grew up where i had to defend my father and even when i was in rotc in the late 70s on the campus of Arizona State univ. I was harassed, i was catcall and spit at when i would wear my rotc uniform. I dont ever want to go back to those days feeling you needed to apologize and defend your appearance because someone was calling them a baby killer. As i look at the way the current generation of troops are being valued it is heartwarming to me as a mother. Is a great thing. I have six younger brothers and sisters, some of them struggled with the constant moving and it was a very difficult time. On the other hand there is no place where i feel more at home and on not based or post and there was a connection between family that was so tight because no matter where we were. Maybe not my dad, i treasure that, treasurer of the people i met. And we were also trained so that part of military life was continues to be very special. I find it interesting. Host you grew up in that environment and married somebody who was in the air force and move to a small town, ohio form in ohio and but as a military myself, and long extended period it is very frightening. You are going to raise your children in one place for most of their childhood. Talkedabout that transition. Guest i thought that was what i wanted, to know what it felt like to have stuff pile up in my basement and not have to have one box of my special things every time i move, there is a part of that that is very comforting and i know who my mechanic is, and i know who my doctor is but i get in trouble all the time because i dont wave when people drive by. When you live in expenses you dont expect to know anybody you dont looking somebodys but in smalltown america Everybody Knows everybody. But the joke is dont come into my house in the dark because i do miss moving and i do miss being in new places so one of the ways i would cope with that is move furniture and i am not talking about moving justin couch, i might turn the living room into the dining room and move the bed room around so my husband would come in late at night and wouldnt know which room to go to and that is a running joke but there are parts of it that are just wonderful and parts of it that i do feel like that dandelion dead is the symbol for of brats, ready to fly on and be in a new environment. How did that experience of growing up on of farm in ohio influence your children to go into the service if it did, and joy tell me a little bit about what you thought when your son, your first son talked about joining the navy . Guest one of the things we did, we lived in an area that is not predominantly military at all. Very few people are in the military but we had my dad, we were fortunate because my husband flew for an airline so we would travel to visit them a lot. Heard the family stories. We would come to d. C. Law we had a Family Tradition to come to the memorial day concert, we did that eight years and they would stand up and so we made sure is that they knew their family legacy of service and in that this was something to be valued so they were exposed to it that. At the same time my husband wanted them to learn to work hard and be uncomfortable because he felt that was preparation for life. If you can follow through and be responsible, work hard and indoor discomfort there isnt a lot that can be thrown at you that you cannot handle. They learned to be okay, they lend to be the animals before they were allowed to eat all these things. Ultimately when eric spent his first summer at the Naval Academy one of the letters we got home was this is a lot easier than being at home baling hay. We thought we succeeded. We have him prepared. But we knew from the time he was the very little boy he wanted to be top gun. Brother in law was an Navy Recruiter and we would get boxes and airplane pictures and my husband was like he is going to go in the air force. I was in the air force but he had that dream and that vision and as he got older we visited that the academys, look that different options. Because he knew he wanted to be a military pilot. When he was accepted to the Naval Academy i was so excited and proud of him because he was realizing the beginning of his dream. There is a lot more to happen before he would get his wings. At the same time it wasnt until that very first day, induction date even though i had grown up in the military and understood and respected it as an institution that first day all of a sudden it hit me and this was going to be totally different than any other military Family Experience i had had to that point. Host have you been involved . We have social media, we have a lot, had you been contacting Naval Academy parents up until that point or were you aware of this sort of great big parents groups that is out there . Back in the day there was no facebook at that point. Your town had an appointment, you could participate. So it was probably april and a kind of questions you asked where what do they need to bring . What, tennis shoes to they need and all that manutius that when you are apparent horse especially imam you feel you are in control because you are making sure that they have everything they need and that is part of the reality of once they hit that door there is nothing else that i can do that is going to prepare them any more than i have and it is up to them. That for me was very difficult because i wanted to be able to do everything i needed to them to be successful. But Apron Strings are cut, not just cut but hacked with a machete and now is up to him and he was going to sink or swim based on his passion and ability to survive and it was an immediate he is out of the next moment. , joy hands on parent were you prior . Would you describe yourself as a helicopter mom . No. I call myself an eagle mom. We did a lot of things to have them be independent and to help them sort. We dont run interference for them when they had difficulties. It was like okay, you signed up for in this, you are not quitting the team, you need to work it out show the coach what you can do. Anything they were excited about or passionate about and i was there for is them they were all involved in different sports did community theater. Katrina at decided when she was 13 to climbed to mount everest. I found an expedition that she could earn money, she and my has been joined an expedition, for less than what it would cost to take the family to disneyland but she raised the money herself so i was that kind of supportive if that is what you want to do, but i did not fight battles for them i did not use my connections to help them improve their lot in life. My husband didnt coach, that is the perception that when i think of the helicopter it is trying to smooth away instead of letting people fight their battle. That is how i still know they are ok because i know they can fight these whenever obstacle comes in their path i know they have the internal skills to handle it. Do i feel like i am standing on the sidelines biting my fingernails, cheering them on . Of course. But i need to have confidence that they are prepared for what is in front of them so that was my husbands goal creating an environment where independents and hard work is going to pay off and sometimes it wasnt there. Sometimes things happen to where i really wanted to get more involved but i held myself back because that wasnt going to hell. Now what i tell Naval Academy parents, a helicopter parent, you create helicoptered parents when you dont give people enough information so part of my goal is to give them information about what to expect because when i know what to expect, i can relax and ease off and dont need to be hovering. I say the same thing to my grandchildren. If you dont want me hovering it just give me some crumbs of information. I need to know you are okay. If you tell me you are okay i dont need to hover and now it boils down sometimes it is once every two months especially when they are deployed, i dont expect to hear from them every day. I am grateful for second hand news, but when i know that all i need to know is it is okay. Then i back off. Host not so much of how to parenting book about how to navigate this new world and culture that is the military and you have a background being a military family, you encounter everyday people who think it is completely a foreign country. Talk about a little bit about the unique culture that is the military family and how hard it is to convey to brand new parents, brand new people whose kids justin list or went to the Naval Academy norwest point, how do you sort of held from navigate this new world . Guest we do a series and a face book page where i joy series called free 101 for Naval Academy parents but it is pretty much basic truth for example in the military, rules are rules, rules are not made to be broken and i used to teach in a Junior High School environment and most of my students are not used to that kind of environment where a rule means it is a rule. For example i grew up walking on sidewalks never the grass. That is Second Nature to me. That was part of military order and discipline so the first thing is to explain that concept of military order and discipline, that whether you think it is a stupid rule or not or whether you want to express your individuality or whatever it there is the reason we need uniformity, theres a reason we need a chain of command and theres a reason why we need to follow as that for good order and discipline and every military unit in the world has to have that basis so explaining to parents it doesnt matter if the underclass is stupid, they are modeling behavior that later on in a time of war or a difficult time they need to count on people doing what they are supposed to do when they are told to do it. It is basic truth. People who didnt grow up in the military many times do not have the confidence in the institution that i have growing up in it because as you get older and look back you see reason, a message in all the madness. Why should people be trained to behave this way . Because there are times that it is critical that they need to follow procedures and i go back to my son flies the 767. They have procedures they need to follow in the event of emergency to the letter in order to keep everyone on board or keep themselves safe. It is the same thing, so many things they do in the military are with nuclearweapons or they have men and women in their command that they are responsible for. There is a reason you need to follow the rules and follow procedures. So it begins with that. The second part especially when they are in a training environment is what are they going to be doing three, four, ten years from now . If there training to become officers they will be responsible for other people in life or death situations. It is important for them to be pushed to their limits to note that they can perform even in the most difficult circumstances. That is why they do these things that seem ridiculous. Because they need to know that they can be unemotional in a time when most people would not. As we go through these different phases then we get to the heart hardest one of all which is you have absolutely no control over anything. You can counsel, you can give advice but if they have a medical problem, the military will take care of that. If they have a leadership problem they need to go through the chain of command to take care of the situation they are dealing with. That is probably the most difficult part of all of it you cant call the counselor. Host i would see that as a great relief. My job is over. Guest you dont. Host at do now. In the beginning of first time i went through it it was a shock. I dont have that to worry about. I have other things i need to worry about for many new parents, or when their son or daughter hits a bump in the road and they get a phone call or Text Messages that sense this guy is doing this or whatever and it is just like when they went on the bus the first time, what do you want to do . Just get in and fix it and you cant anymore. You can because it is not appropriate and it is what they need to take care of and so that is one of the hardest parts and it also coincides with the time for a lot of women when their nests is starting to empty and we start to redefine who we are. Our role as mother changes. You still parent, your parents are still parenting you if theyre still alive, it is really hard. There is no what to expect when you are expecting, parenting and adult child. That is where motherinlaw jokes come from. How do we navigate this new world especially when we have children that are fiercely independent warriors . But they will always be my childs, not maturity level but biologically. Lets talk about the experience of having your children go into combat zones, war zones, military that is at war. In the beginning, there were discussions, obviously programs for families programs for spouses, seminars a Family Readiness programs, whole