Gilberta Guth

An extraordinary and moving "whither thou goest". Okay, I just finished this book, and I have to admit that a couple hundred pages into it, I nearly quit reading. I'm not sure why; probably because I wished there were more about Joe Guth himself, and his career, which would have been much more interesting than all the stuff about friends, setting up housekeeping and babies and childcare. Then it suddenly occurred to me that those things are precisely what make up the life and routines of a "good military wife." In 1976 I re-enlisted in the army when I was 32, disillusioned with my teaching career of 5 years. I had a wife and two little boys. I don't think I ever gave enough thought to all the sacrifices and life changes my wife made over the next 5 and a half years. I was too busy with all the new stuff I was learning and getting adjusted to a military life myself. Of course, my wife has told me plenty of times since then about how it was for her, having to uproot herself from our comfy suburban life and travel across country from Michigan to California and adjust to transient and military family quarters more than once. We were separated for nearly a year of the first two years of my training, and my family moved back in with her folks. Our daughter was born in a military hospital in Augsburg, Germany, where my wife learned about keeping her hospital room neat and tidy. Culture shock? Hell, yes! But she persevered and followed me halfway around the world and back. She must have loved me, huh? Well, that's what Gil Guth's book is about - LOVE. She put up with all the moves and inconveniences, as well as the uncertainty and fear that comes with being a pilot's wife. She made a real home for her husband and children wherever they were - California, Japan, France, Georgia, Virginia, the Carolinas - so many places. And she kept the kids quiet while he studied for his MBA (on the Air Force's dime)at Georgetown. She made the trips to the ER with the kids, she endured the separations, long and short. She put up with her "strong silent" husband's moodiness and sometimes self-centeredness. And tnen, finally, she nursed him through to the very gut-wrenching, heartbreaking end. This was an old-fashioned wife. If it did nothing else, Gilberta's story made me appreciate my own wife a little more. Think I'll go give her this book to read - and a hug. Thank you so much, Gil, for writing it all down, for sharing this very American and patriotic story. God bless you. -… (más)