Customer Reviews

Once a Brat

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Marilyn's brat book should find its own nitche in the small world of brat related literature. It is non-fiction, but it deals only with Marilyn and her family. Ms. Morris takes us back to the early days of post-World War II and to places were we and Communisim faced each other - Korea and Austria. Her book is well written and well remembered. My only fault is that she appears to repeat herself a couple of times. i still found it a pleasant and informative read and I was happy to compare my experiences with hers.

I had tears and nodding smiles as I read this book. It even helped me understand a bit of myself. I always wondered what it was about me that I could walkk away from relationships and not turn back. It makes me see why my marriage has failed so, being married to a drafted vet doesn't make it when you are a Brat. This is a road I am dreading in my life as a life-long Brat. But, it encouraged me as well.

I just finished Marilyn Celeste Morris' book, "Once a Brat," and I can't even begin to tell you how empowering that book was to me. As a military brat myself, I devoured the book, but what made it interesting was that if you stop and think about it, Marilyn is one of the last of the military children born to these WWII vets that are dying at 1000 a day. Marilyn's book is a legacy to military brats everywhere, but more than that, it's a legacy to mankind as this was history that we will never recapture again, except in words or in pictures. Marilyn's words paint that picture of what it was like being eight-years-old and having to travel to war-torn countries after given orders from the War Department to join her father and the rest of her family at the end of WWII. I found her story riveting and a fine example of recapturing history from a personal point of view. It's a powerful story that history books would never be able to touch. A must-read not only for military brats everywhere who can relate to Marilyn's story, but an excellent addition to anyone's library shelf!

--Dorothy Thompson, editor, The Writer's Life Ezine

[...]

In these days when modern soldiers can keep in touch with home and loved ones via the Internet, it is salutary to be reminded that in the period following World War II, letters were the only communication available for those posted to distant shores. At least the members of the armies of Occupation could take their nuclear families with them. There was no way out of this. A serviceman followed orders, and wives and children followed their husbands and fathers, no matter how often they were transferred.

Marilyn Morris's vivid memoir, beginning at age 8, brings home to us all the price and occasional privilege of being sent around the world with a military officer father. No airplane flights to far places, either, but shipboard voyages accompanied by dire seasickness. Approximately every three years, sometimes less, the family are uprooted and sent to different posts, different climates, different schools. They make new friends, they learn new languages, they become accustomed to sometimes poor living conditions. They learn to cut clean from the immediate past, they learn all human beings are made from one mould, they learn to cope. In the end heart-cracking change is balanced by knowledge gained. They have grown up in alien lands, and return home to be posted again to new places within their own country. Their experiences have set them apart, and at the same time given them a unique perspective on the world.

Marilyn's dossier is never dull, it is full of interest and discovery. The ultimate question now is, "What would I have been like if my dad hadn't been a serviceman?" Morris's answer for herself is positive. She discovers others with negative viewpoints of the same kind of life, and realises she has been comparatively fortunate. No matter how often they were ordered onwards, the family unit remained their centre, intact and normal.

My only complaint is I would have liked to hear more details of the Department of Defence education the military children enjoyed! Enjoyed in retrospect because it was far superior to the schooling they would receive at 'home'.

Altogether an excellent read, and much too short!

Monya (Mary) Clayton