What a Journey

It seems like an eternity ago that I was proposing this idea to my publisher Ted Savas of Savas Beatie LLC. Fortunately for the military community, he saw the need for this type of book to be available for family members of deployed personnel.

The idea for Surviving Military Separation came to me after a week of counseling family members of 1st Armored Division stationed at Wiesbaden, Germany. Their service members had just been deployed to Iraq and were scheduled to be away for 365 days or “until mission is complete”. Our offices were flooded with family member dependents looking for something to help them pass the time. And although the military community is family friendly and has professional organizations setting up activities for just this reason, I noticed that no one was breaking the activities down in a structured and manageable time period. Some spouses needed a day-by-day calendar of scheduled events that they could choose from to get through the deployment.

When the idea for Surviving Military Separation struck me, I immediately went to the local bookstore and visited online vendors looking for a similar book. I found none. There is nothing on the current book market that helps the family member of a deployed military personnel by saying, “today is a new day and here is what you are going to do”.

The glorious thing about Surviving Military Separation is that it is an activity guidebook created especially for family members of deployed personnel. The book has 365 days of activities for the family member to attempt. The activities are laid out seven at a time for 52 week sections. The book’s setup allows the reader the ability to break down the deployment into weeks instead of months which gives the family member a chance to take the deployment one step at a time.

I truly believe that this book will help our family members cope with a deployment… any deployment. Whether it is a deployment to support our Global War on Terrorism, a TDY, a trip to a Professional Development school, a new service member leaving for Basic Training or Boot camp, a few months out to sea for our Navy or Coast Guard, or a local training exercise that will take the service member away from the home, Surviving Military Separation will help the time fly until the family can be reunited.

With the wonderful help of Sarah Keeney, Savas Beatie Marketing Director, and that of artist Val Laolagi, who created a fantastic mascot named Serviceman Sam (visit Sam’s page) for our book, this book has become a reality that everyone in the military community can use.

I would ask everyone that has a family member that must endure the hardships of a deployment, to pass along our website for their view. Together, we can combat the potential idleness of a Military Separation.

Warmest regards,

Marc