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Invisible
Wo m e n
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Invisible
Wo m e n
J u n i o r E n l i s t e d A r my W i v e s
MARGARET C. HARRELL
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Harrell, Margaret C.
Invisible women : junior enlisted Army wives / Margaret C. Harrell.
p. cm.
“MR-1223”
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8330-2880-4
1. Army spouses—United States—Interviews. 2. United States. Army—Military
life. I. Title: Junior enlisted Army wives. II. Title.
U766 .H32 2000

355.1'086'550973—dc21
00-055264
RAND is a nonprofit institution that helps improve policy and decision-

making through research and analysis. RAND® is a registered trademark.
RAND’s publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of its
research sponsors.
Cover design by Eileen Delson La Russo
© Copyright 2000 RAND
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by
any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or
information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from RAND.
Published 2000 by RAND

1700 Main Street, P.O. Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138
1200 South Hayes Street, Arlington, VA 22202-5050
RAND URL: http://www.rand.org/
To order RAND documents or to obtain additional information, contact
Distribution Services: Telephone: (310) 451-7002;
Fax: (310) 451-6915; Internet: [email protected]
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Contents
Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Background of the Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Why the Army? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
A Word About Locations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Selection and Description of Research Locations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Ft. Stewart, Georgia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Ft. Drum, New York . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Selection of a Unit at the Research Locations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Spouse Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Selecting and Interviewing Spouses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Organization of This Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
CHAPTER 2
DANA’S STORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Her Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Relationship with Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Family Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Financial Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Career Ambition and Current Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
His Future in the Military . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Family Support Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Rank Among the Spouses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Army Policy on Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
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vi INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES
Housing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Household Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Her Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
CHAPTER 3
JENNIFER’S STORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Her Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
A New Army Wife. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Their Relationship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Friendships and Family Support Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Her Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Employment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Parenting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Her Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
CHAPTER 4
TONI’S STORY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Her Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Their Relationship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Why He Joined the Army . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Off to Basic Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Welcome to Ft. Stewart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Finding a Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Getting Busted. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Her Pregnancies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Family Relationship. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Her Friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Problems in the Unit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Family Support Group. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
She Has an Influence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Her Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
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CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER 5
CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Overview of Dana’s Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Overview of Jennifer’s Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Overview of Toni’s Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Stereotypical Women? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
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Tables
2.1. Dana’s Typical Monthly Pay Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

2.2. Dana’s Monthy Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.1. Jennifer’s Typical Monthly Pay Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
3.2. Jennifer’s Monthly Bills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
4.1. Toni’s Typical Monthly Pay Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
4.2. Toni’s Monthly Bills. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
ix
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Preface
In the best of circumstances, military manpower policy is crafted

by policymakers with input from military personnel managers, ana-
lysts, and military leadership with an in-depth understanding of the
life experiences and views of junior enlisted personnel. It is plausible
to expect that some policymakers attribute the attitudes and experi-
ences of these young soldiers to particular features, such as youth or
lack of advanced education, and thus believe themselves able to
empathize with this population group by recalling their own parallel
life experiences. However, this approach oversimplifies the life expe-
riences of these families and neglects the reality that most policy-
makers and professional managers have never experienced the com-
pendium of problems these couples face, such as youth, lack of
education, financial difficulties, emotional and physical distance from
extended family, and invisibility in a large bureaucracy.
At the center of this book are the personal stories of three junior
enlisted spouses, told in their own voices and selected to emphasize
the dilemmas numerous enlisted families face. The stories provide
insight into the experiences and attitudes of some junior enlisted fam-
ilies. Those who live a military lifestyle—at any pay grade—will find
these stories both useful and engaging. Some junior enlisted person-
nel and their spouses will recognize themselves in these stories, and
others in the military community will gain a better understanding of
problems they may have seen. Additionally, these insights help pro-
vide some human context for official statistics and should be of inter-
est to the military leadership; personnel managers; analysts; and pol-
icymakers involved in the recruiting, retention, and management of
junior enlisted personnel and their families, as well as to Congress
and the media.
xi
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xii INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES
These stories were excerpted from a long series of interviews con-

ducted during research for a dissertation that addressed the roles and
experiences of Army spouses. This research included 105 recorded
and transcribed interviews with military spouses, as well as less for-
mal interviews and discussions with military personnel, spouses, and
other individuals in the military community. The author also spoke
with numerous other spouses and soldiers during Enlisted Spouses
Club meetings, Officers’ Spouses Club meetings, visits to Army Com-
munity Services facilities, and various other gatherings. This research
also included an extensive review of the archives of local military and
civilian newspapers.
The dissertation research was supported in part by the University
of Virginia’s Center for Children, Families, and the Law; the National
Science Foundation; RAND; and the Forces and Resources Policy
Center of RAND’s National Defense Research Institute, a federally
funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of
the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Commands, and
the defense agencies. While the research was not part of a RAND
project and was not funded through the Department of Defense, the
Army officially acknowledged it and enabled it to occur. At each of
the research locations, the author was formally acknowledged by the
local military leadership and was approved for interviews and dis-
cussions with military personnel, civilian Department of Defense
employees, and military dependents. While the research was not part
of a RAND project and was not funded through the Department of
Defense, the Army facilitated the interviews and discussions with mil-
itary personnel, civilian Department of Defense employees, and mili-
tary dependents.
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Acknowledgments
I found the local support and endorsement of commanders at

Ft. Stewart, Georgia, and at Ft. Drum, New York, as well as the assis-
tance of personnel from Army Community Services and others at
these installations invaluable to this research.
Like many ethnographic works, this product resulted from can-
did conversations with the women featured in this work, as well as
with many other Army spouses, Army officers, and professionals
who work in the Army and local civilian communities. Although con-
fidentiality precludes the mention of these individuals by name, I
deeply appreciate the time they spent with me and the positive atti-
tude they showed toward this research. Most of the interviews with
Army spouses were conducted in their homes, and many of these
spouses both welcomed and befriended me.
This work benefited from the involvement of my academic com-
mittee members from the University of Virginia, professors Susan
McKinnon (Anthropology), Peter Metcalf (Anthropology), Charles
Perdue (Anthropology), and Sharon Hays (Sociology), as well as
from the extremely constructive review by Professor Laura Miller
(Sociology), University of California at Los Angeles.
The support and encouragement of RAND colleagues Susan
Hosek, former Program Director, Forces and Resources Policy Cen-
ter, and her successor, Susan Everingham, were also very important to
this work. Jerry Sollinger contributed the title and helped to develop
this piece from a chapter of an academic dissertation. Jennifer Sloan
provided helpful comments in the initial compilation of the tran-
scribed material, and Shirley Lithgow painstakingly transcribed the
interviews conducted. The cover is the work of Eileen LaRusso and
John Warren, and the entire document benefited from the adminis-
xiii
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xiv INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES
trative assistance of Hjordis Blanchard. Finally, Phyllis Gilmore

edited the book and prepared it for publication.
Additionally, Pamela Stevens transcribed many of the spouse
interviews and Margaret L. M. Cecchine reviewed an early version
of the transcribed material.
The field research for this work was made possible, in part, by a
dissertation seed grant from the Center for Children, Families, and
the Law, University of Virginia, and a dissertation research grant
from the National Science Foundation.
Finally, my love and thanks to Mike and Clay, who encouraged
this work and tolerated my absence from home for so many weeks,
and to Tommie, whose arrival was effective motivation.
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Chapter 1
Introduction
This book differs markedly from what many think of as a typical

RAND report—a heavily quantitative analysis of a public policy
issue. Rather, this document tells a story—three stories, actually—of
what it is like to be the wife of a junior enlisted soldier in today’s U.S.
Army. Most unusually for RAND, the book tells this story largely by
using the words of three young women who are married to junior
enlisted soldiers.
This story is important for those charged with crafting personnel
policy for the military services to hear. Taken together, these narra-
tives open a window into the lives of young enlisted families that pol-
icymakers rarely, if ever, have an opportunity to peer through.
Although told by individuals and highly personal, these stories
extend beyond the three women who tell them. The problems they
face, their perceptions (and misperceptions) of the Army, and the con-
cerns they have both make for compelling reading and bring an indis-
pensable human dimension to the need for, and effects of, policy on
a very important segment of the group that the policies are intended
to serve.
Background of the Research

These stories are excerpted from a dissertation regarding the
expectations for and roles of U.S. Army spouses. That research
involved taped and transcribed interviews with over one hundred
Army spouses, as well as extensive discussions and time spent with
Army personnel and civilians who work in the Army community.
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2 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES
Why the Army?

To reduce this research to a size and scope consistent with the
time and resources available, it was necessary to select a single service
for research. This work concentrates upon Army spouses. Any of the
services could have served as a source of spouses; however, the Army
was chosen for a number of reasons. The Air Force has the lowest
percentage of enlisted service members because its primary need is for
pilots and because of the associated educational requirements. The
Marine Corps held a certain appeal, because it is most focused on the
enlisted level and because, in the 1990s, Marine Corps leadership
considered precluding the recruitment of married men as enlisted
Marines. However, the Marines are the smallest branch of the armed
forces and have few stateside posts. The Army and the Navy are both
advantageous choices because they contain a large number and high
percentage of enlisted personnel, as well as a diversity of research
locations from which to select. Given the opportunity to focus on
only one service, the Army was chosen because a better quality of
product could be produced in a timely manner. The author is a
daughter of an Army officer and therefore has a background in Army
culture and language. This knowledge allowed the author to under-
stand more of the context of the issues and prevented any delay nec-
essary to learn service-specific organizational structure, traditions,
and terminology. Also, prior research conducted with the coopera-
tion of the Army resulted in its willingness to provide entrance into
the Army community, an endeavor that can be quite time consuming
and not always successful for scholars wishing to study military per-
sonnel.
A Word About Locations

Initial investigation suggested that the selection of research loca-
tions was critical to the research effort. It was important to split the
research between two locations, both to ensure that data were not
limited by area-specific issues and to guarantee confidentiality. Past
research experience also indicated that individuals were more com-
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INTRODUCTION 3
fortable and more candid talking to researchers if they knew that the
research included multiple locations.
The following criteria determined the locations. First, it was
important that the location include operational units, as opposed to
training units. Operational units are structured by rank, from the
most junior enlisted personnel to the commanding general. The
author’s prior research and personal experience suggested that the
role of spouses rested on both the rank and the job of the uniformed
military member. In contrast, training organizations comprise the
“cadre” and the students. The students consist of, and act as, groups
of peers and often have considerably less vested in the community,
given that they may remain at that post for as little as a few weeks or
as much as only ten or eleven months. Second, given the choice of an
operational unit, it was important to find a location where the oper-
ational unit was deploying with relative frequency, because frequent
deployments increase both the role of military spouses and the
stresses that they encounter. Third, an Army post removed from any
major metropolitan areas was desirable, the hypothesis being that
greater distance from a major metropolitan area would increase both
the spouses’ dependence on and involvement in the military commu-
nity. Fourth, it was useful to avoid locations perceived to be “over-
studied” because of concern about potential interview subjects who
were tired of researchers. This concern eliminated, for example, Ft.
Bragg, North Carolina.
Most of these criteria were designed to select a location with mil-
itary families living in potentially stressful situations. This was done
for several reasons. First, almost all military families spend some time
at such locations. Thus, to select a location where families did not
experience these pressures was to ignore the more difficult periods
that military families endure and thus to paint a misleadingly rosy
picture. Second, by selecting such research sites, this research could
determine the extent to which the military community and its
resources can address and ameliorate the problems that military fam-
ilies face.
These criteria resulted in the selection of two bases typical of
bases with deployable units. While the results cannot be generalized
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across the entire Department of Defense or even the entire Army,

these stories do provide insights into the lives of junior enlisted
spouses, given that the majority of junior enlisted soldiers are
assigned to bases like these.
Selection and Description of Research Locations

Application of the criteria set to the Army installations led to the
selection of Ft. Stewart, Georgia, and Ft. Drum, New York. The fol-
lowing text describes the characteristics of these locations. It is
important to remember that military personnel rotate through differ-
ent locations and, thus, that the military personnel and families at
these locations are not themselves specific to that geographical
region. The result is a diverse mixture of uniformed personnel and
families at all military bases.
Ft. Stewart, Georgia

Ft. Stewart is home to the frequently deployed 3rd Infantry Divi-
sion and is located approximately 40 miles from Savannah, Georgia.
Although Ft. Stewart, which covers 279, 270 acres, is the largest
Army installation east of the Mississippi, much of the area is swamp-
land. Approximately 15,900 soldiers are stationed at Ft. Stewart, and
there are 3,356 civilian employees on post.1
Ft. Stewart has been in existence (although formerly called Camp
Stewart) on an on-again, off-again basis since 1940.2 As the Vietnam
conflict came to a close in the early 1970s, Ft. Stewart was largely
inactive, having been used mostly as a training camp for the prior
decades. However, in 1974, the 1st Battalion of the 75th Infantry
Regiment (Ranger) and the 1st Brigade of the 24th Infantry Division
were reactivated at Ft. Stewart. The reactivation of these two historic
units carried Ft. Stewart into a new phase. Many facilities were
updated, and many of the older World War II–vintage wooden build-
ings were replaced, although some of these older buildings still dic-
tate the landscape of Ft. Stewart, giving the post a stereotypical mil-
1Marcoa Publishing, Inc., Ft. Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield, 1996.
2The Ft. Stewart background material is excerpted largely from material that the Ft. Stewart Public Affairs
Office provided, as well as from the official Ft. Stewart Web site (http://www.stewart.army.mil).
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INTRODUCTION 5
itary appearance. In 1980, the 24th Infantry Division was designated

a mechanized division and became the heavy infantry division of the
then–new Rapid Deployment Force (RDF). The RDF role dictates the
atmosphere at Ft. Stewart, given that the mission of the RDF is to be
prepared to deploy to anywhere on the globe at a moment’s notice.
The commanding general of the division has described its role as the
“head of the spear” of rapid deployment.
In 1996, the 3rd Infantry Division replaced the 24th Infantry
Division at Ft. Stewart and continued the role as the heavy infantry
division of the RDF, but for most individuals stationed at Ft. Stewart,
this amounted to little more than a name change. The mission
remained the same; individuals were not reassigned or moved to dif-
ferent units; and some battalions did not even change their designa-
tions. The tone of Ft. Stewart, where any international crisis reported
on the evening news may mean that the unit is about to deploy, is the
same. Indeed, deployment is a constant fact of life for those at Ft.
Stewart. During Operation Desert Storm, the entire division deployed
to the Persian Gulf, leaving Ft. Stewart and the surrounding areas vir-
tually a ghost town, as many of the younger spouses left the area to
stay with relatives during the deployment. Since then, the division has
participated in missions in Kuwait, Bosnia, and Egypt, mostly on
three- to six-month rotations, and portions of the division are cur-
rently deployed.
Liberty County, in which most of Ft. Stewart is located, consists
of small communities with a total county population of approxi-
mately 62,000. The closest town to Ft. Stewart is Hinesville, Georgia,
which sits immediately outside the military gates. Hinesville is a small
town of slightly more than 30,000 people, who largely depend upon
Ft. Stewart as the major employer of the area. Business and industry
are limited in Hinesville, consisting mainly of mini-malls, car dealer-
ships, trailer parks, and fast-food restaurants. Thus, employment
opportunities are extremely limited. Many of the military families
live in Hinesville and the surrounding area, given the insufficient
amount of military housing on base, and all the military children
attend the local civilian schools after grade 6.
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The residential neighborhoods of Hinesville are a combination of

trailer parks and suburban areas. There are not many neighborhoods
of large or stately homes; several senior officers’ spouses noted their
difficulty finding a home off post and generally mentioned that their
selections were based on either-or choices. Most of the homes were
built approximately 20 years ago, although many of the neighbor-
hoods still lack large trees. Certain neighborhoods are occupied pri-
marily by military personnel, and it appears that soldiers of approx-
imately the same rank often reside in the same neighborhood (junior
enlisted with other junior enlisted, junior officers with other junior
officers or with senior noncommissioned officers [NCOs], senior offi-
cers with other senior officers). It is not clear whether coincidence,
cost, or comfort with one’s neighbors drives this arrangement.
The local civilian population has mixed sentiments about Ft.
Stewart. They depend upon the military for their livelihood, which
was made very apparent during Operation Desert Storm, when some
local businesses went bankrupt because of the deployment and the
lack of military left in the area. However, there is also a certain
amount of animosity and resentment toward the military community,
albeit not necessarily to any degree greater than that found in similar
situations all over the country.
Although Savannah is a one-hour drive from Ft. Stewart, few
people venture to Savannah on a regular basis, and it is generally con-
sidered too far away to commute for employment opportunities.
Likewise, although there are renowned resort communities within
reasonable distances—Tybee Island, Georgia (1.5-hour drive), Hilton
Head Island, South Carolina (2-hour drive), and Charleston, South
Carolina (2.5-hour drive)—few military people indulge in such out-
ings, and people complain that the Ft. Stewart–Hinesville location is
isolated and limited. Other complaints frequently include the weather
of Ft. Stewart, which is hot and humid during the long summers typ-
ical of the southeastern United States.
Ft. Drum, New York

Like Ft. Stewart, Georgia, Ft. Drum hosts frequently deployed
units and is located in a geographically remote, economically
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INTRODUCTION 7
depressed area. Ft. Drum is the residence of the 10th Mountain Divi-
sion, another frequently deployed operational unit. The post is
located in upstate New York, approximately a two-hour drive north
of Syracuse. Ft. Drum is another relatively large installation, covering
107, 265 acres and including approximately 10,500 assigned military
personnel and 2,500 civilian employees.3 Its mission includes plan-
ning and support for the mobilization and training of almost 80,000
troops annually. Most of Ft. Drum is relatively new, having been built
as part of the reactivation of the post in 1985. The facilities at Ft.
Drum are considerably more spread out than those on Ft. Stewart
and are located on primarily wooded and rolling terrain, with a lot
of open space.
Decisions made as part of the reactivation of Ft. Drum, in 1985,
had a dramatic effect upon the character of military housing for the
post. Ft. Drum has a relatively large number of military housing
quarters, but approximately half of the housing is located off Ft.
Drum. Although most housing areas outside the post are sited near a
local village, there is often little nearby other than a drugstore, a con-
venience store, and an occasional fast-food establishment. Some of
these housing areas are as much as 30 miles from post, which is a
considerable distance across roads that are often bad in the winter.
These housing areas, which are only for military residents, are man-
aged by civilian contracting companies and are within the jurisdiction
of the local police, which has also been a cause of concern. At least
one of these housing areas has had problems with violent crime, and
they are perceived by the military to be underpatrolled by local law
enforcement, who complain of limited resources.
This housing arrangement is unusual for the military. Although
there is plenty of room on Ft. Drum to have constructed sufficient
housing on the post, this distant and well-dispersed military housing
resulted from an effort to win local support for the expansion of Ft.
Drum by “spreading the wealth” of both the construction costs and
the purchasing dollars of the military residents. However, the con-
tractors who built the housing are rumored not to have hired many
craftsmen from the local communities, and there are not many local
3As of September 1999 (Ft. Drum Public Affairs Office, telephone communication).
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businesses at which military families can spend their money. The

most unfortunate result of this decision is that a large number of mil-
itary families are stranded in remote areas distant from post.
Ft. Drum and most of the military housing areas are located
within Jefferson County, New York, which is a rural county with a
population of approximately 111,000, comprising mostly small
towns and villages. More than a fourth of this population resulted
from the reactivation of Ft. Drum.4 The terrain of the area is rolling
countryside, punctuated by farms. Although there is a fair amount of
wooded area, the effects of the severe ice storm of several years ago
are still evident; trees are broken and have been pruned back in often
bizarre shapes to remove the dead and broken branches. The result is
an almost surreal countryside after the leaves have dropped from the
trees.
Like the civilian area outside Ft. Stewart, the area surrounding Ft.
Drum is economically sluggish, with few employment opportunities
for military spouses. The closest town to Ft. Drum is Watertown,
New York, which has a population of approximately 29,400. Water-
town has considerably more entertainment options (e.g., restaurants,
a shopping mall, movie theaters) than does the Hinesville area out-
side of Ft. Stewart, Georgia, but nonetheless is still economically
depressed and offers few employment opportunities. The jobs that
are available typically pay minimum wage and so are considered
unworthy of the long drive from the more distant housing areas, even
for families that have two vehicles.
The county is a renowned recreational area, with fishing, hunt-
ing, and sailing, particularly in the Thousand Islands region, which
was known as the “Millionaires’ Playground” at the turn of the cen-
tury. However, the economy of the county has largely depended upon
the water, agricultural, and forest resources, and there are few
employment opportunities for new arrivals, such as military spouses.
Some of the military families do speak positively of the fishing, hunt-
ing, and the local resort atmosphere of Sackett’s Harbor, a waterfront
community, but like the spouses at Ft. Stewart, most bemoan the iso-
lation of the surroundings.
4Jefferson County Web page (http://www.sunyjefferson.edu/jc/About/home.html).
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INTRODUCTION 9
In fact, with the exception of the characteristics of military hous-

ing at the two locations (more is available at Ft. Drum, but most of
Ft. Drum’s housing is more remote than that at Ft. Stewart), many of
the complaints of spouses living in Ft. Stewart and Ft. Drum were
similar: the lack of employment or career options, the remote loca-
tions, the extreme climates, the frequent field exercises that take their
soldiers away for brief separations (two days to one month), and the
constant threat of longer (three to six months) deployments. Further,
while the units at Ft. Drum and Ft. Stewart deploy more than units
at many other bases, some of the characteristics of these two loca-
tions also apply to many military bases. The remote location and the
depressed economic situation (often a result of the remote location)
are generally characteristic of Army bases with deployable units, and
it is to these units that the majority of junior enlisted personnel are
assigned.
Selection of a Unit at the Research Locations

With the assistance of official contacts at each of the research
locations, two units were selected for study. At Ft. Stewart, this was
an infantry battalion, which consisted of approximately 900 person-
nel, including all enlisted ranks, and officers to the rank of the bat-
talion commander, a lieutenant colonel. Because this is an infantry
battalion, there are no women in the unit. Thus, all the military
spouses of this battalion are wives.
At Ft. Drum, to provide some contrast with the all-male infantry
battalion, a support battalion was chosen. The battalion selected
includes women but deploys with other all-male combat units. At the
time of the research, there were 510 individuals in the selected bat-
talion, and less than 20 percent of the personnel were female.
Specific battalions were selected because it was important to
speak with spouses whose military sponsors had the same chain of
command and deployment experiences.5 This common experience
would enable discernment of individual opinion and interpretation of
single events from different experiences and exposures to issues and
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incidents. However, interviews were not confined to spouses from

these battalions. Although enough spouses from the same battalion
were interviewed to gain an accurate depiction of life as a spouse in
that battalion and to be able to discern the effects of individual per-
sonalities from the realities that faced the women married to soldiers
in a particular unit, a depiction of life at the overall location was
important. Thus, it was necessary to guard against having percep-
tions marred by the potential selection of a problematic unit. Addi-
tionally, obtaining interviews with spouses who had unique charac-
teristics, such as those who were extremely active in the community,
and with spouses of higher-ranking officers than were assigned to a
battalion required a sample from outside the selected battalions.
Spouse Interviews
The interviews conducted with military spouses are the heart of
the broader research effort. The interviews were conducted in a loose,
life-history style with very open-ended questions about the spouses’
backgrounds and their experiences of, and attitudes toward, military
life. An understanding of their prior socioeconomic backgrounds was
sought either to challenge or to reassert the perceived differences
between the spouses of the officer and enlisted communities, as well
as to help explain their differing perceptions of one another. In gen-
eral, this life-history approach to the interviews provided an oppor-
tunity to gain a broader understanding from more-general questions
and tended to illuminate the issues that the spouses were most con-
cerned about more than a strict question-and-answer interview for-
mat might have done. The less-structured discussion permitted the
spouses to indicate the aspects of their lives that they found most
rewarding, frustrating, or difficult. This format also contributed to
an understanding of the formal and informal networks of spouses,
including how, why, and to what degree they interact with one
another; how they learned the rules of interaction; and their attitudes
toward formal rules of interaction among spouses, including how
5The sponsor is the member of the marriage who wears the military uniform. Hereafter, the dependent, or
civilian spouse, will be referred to as the spouse, and the military member of the family will be referred to
as the sponsor.
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INTRODUCTION 11
they referred to one another. Hearing how spouses referred to the

spouses of higher-ranking military personnel, as well as how they
characterized the spouses of lower-ranking personnel, during the
interviews provided the basis for a depiction of the cultural con-
struction of gender roles across class in the military hierarchy.
The protocol developed for these interviews was used primarily
as a checklist of topics, rather than as a question-and-answer tool. All
the interviews were conducted by a single researcher, thus ensuring
that questions were asked similarly throughout the interviews.
Although the content of the interviews varied somewhat based upon
the individual’s background, time in the military community, atti-
tudes about their military experience, and personality, most inter-
views covered the same basic materials and issues.
Selecting and Interviewing Spouses

The sampling of spouses for interviews involved some rather
elaborate techniques to ensure that those interviewed would remain
anonymous. These procedures were complicated further by Army
regulations and policies to ensure privacy. Other limitations included
such things as disconnected phones and, at Ft. Drum, the distances
between residences and bad winter weather. In all, over 100 spouses
were interviewed.
In addition to the standard interviews, three women, whose sto-
ries form the core of this document, agreed to participate in more-
extensive expanded interviews. These were expanded life-history
interviews carried out over several days with the spouse, including
accompanying her out of her home and developing a much broader
and deeper understanding of her experience in the military commu-
nity, including a detailed understanding of the financial aspects of
their lives.
These particular women were selected because of the relationship
between each of their stories, provided during an initial standard
interview, and the stereotype regarding the lives of junior enlisted
spouses, who are typically considered to be young, immature, lower-
class spouses who are in financial difficulty and who have difficulty
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controlling their reproductive tendencies. In short, junior enlisted

spouses are often reputed to be young and immature “big-haired,
trailer park babes with too many children” who do not know how to
manage their money. This stereotype is widely held by the military
community at large, including other junior enlisted personnel and
spouses, who often speak disparagingly of their cohorts. Thus, these
three particular women’s stories were selected for in-depth presenta-
tion according to the degree with which their lives match the com-
mon stereotype.
The next three chapters provide glimpses into the lives of three
women, Dana, Jennifer, and Toni [not their real names]. One is, in
many ways, the stereotypical junior enlisted spouse, although her
own story does produce some sympathy and understanding for the
situation she finds herself in. The second story is that of a very young
spouse, who, but for the grace of some solid family financial guidance
from in-laws who were familiar with the military lifestyle, could be
the stereotypical spouse. Instead, she and her husband are managing,
albeit living a very limited lifestyle. The third is anything but the
stereotypical spouse. Instead, she is an older, more mature woman
with a college degree, past professional experience, and the where-
withal to lead her husband’s unit’s Family Support Group and to
make a difference in the lives of soldiers and spouses within that unit.
However, even such a capable, intelligent woman has her own seri-
ous troubles, which the military community exacerbates, and she
simply cannot manage the household expenses without working in an
extremely unappealing job. Hers is a story of personal and profes-
sional sacrifice.
These women represent three different battalions. Dana’s hus-
band serves in one of the focus battalions. The other two women
were recommended by their Family Support Group leader, in the case
of Jennifer, and their battalion commander’s wife, in the case of Toni.
These women agreed to speak extensively of their experience
because of their perceptions that they were generally invisible to the
community and because they hoped to affect the lives of other mili-
tary spouses. With the exception of Toni, they felt that readers were
not likely to recognize their stories. Even Toni thought that once she
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INTRODUCTION 13
and her husband relocated to another base (likely to occur before this
publication might be publicly available), she too would become invis-
ible. Further, all three spouses felt that what they did or said in this
interview would not, and could not, affect their husbands.
These stories are the compilation of numerous interviews with
the three women. Thus, there are instances in these interviews where
they may appear to contradict themselves. To the extent possible,
these instances have been noted with italicized comments identifying
the material as coming from a later interview or providing informa-
tion about the changed circumstances (e.g., a recent pregnancy or a
job lost or gained). The interviews with these women were taped,
transcribed, and then structured from these lengthy transcriptions
into orderly representations of their stories. The text of Chapters 2
through 4 comprises their own spoken words. The bracketed text
alters their words slightly to provide necessary information to make
the statement clearer for the reader. Footnotes provide additional
explanations of terms, such as military acronyms, so as not to disrupt
the narratives. Very occasionally, a question asked of the women was
incorporated into their text, but only when it was consistent with
something they would have said themselves or that they mentioned in
a different portion of the transcript. Occasional grammatical errors
were repaired when the fix was consistent with something they them-
selves would have caught and repaired had they seen the final prod-
uct. However, factual errors have been left because they are an impor-
tant part of how these women perceive the military community.
There are noticeable differences in narrative style between the three
stories. This variation is attributable to the style and characteristics
of the women themselves.
Organization of This Book

The following three chapters are the stories told by each of the
three junior enlisted wives. Each chapter begins with an introduction
paragraph written by the author of this book to orient the reader to
the basic circumstances of the woman speaking. However, the rest of
the chapter consists of the woman’s own story. Chapter 5 includes
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overviews of each of the stories and notes the consistencies and dif-
ferences between the women’s experiences. It discusses the degree to
which these women reflect the class-based stereotype of junior
enlisted spouses that emerged from the dissertation research and the
extent to which their problems result from systemic constraints,
which should be of obvious interest to policymakers, or from poor
personal decisions, which, to the extent that they are characteristic of
the youth and inexperience of the typical junior enlisted couple,
should at least be understood by personnel managers and policy-
makers.
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Chapter 2
Dana’s Story
Dana in many ways is the stereotypical junior enlisted wife. She

is recently married, a young wife away from home for the first time,
with a toddler and—before the interviews are over—a second child
on the way. Like many junior enlisted wives, she lives off post in the
only kind of housing they can afford—a trailer. Employment options
are sparse, and the need for child care erodes the modest salary she
can command in a low-paying job market. She has a limited insight
into the intricacies of Army organizations, procedures, and even the
bureaucracies established with her in mind. Her physical isolation,
limited financial means, and lack of knowledge about the insular cul-
ture her husband has joined combine to reinforce her own sense of
invisibility.
Her Background
I definitely did not come from a military family, so this is a whole
new thing for me. I am from Arizona. I miss it so much. I hate it here
but I have no choice, and he has no choice.
My dad worked at [the local utility company]. It’s power and
electricity. [He worked there] from when he was 16 until he retired.
Mom worked now and then. Now she works as assistant manager at
Wal-Mart. That’s how I met my husband, Ted. He worked with her.
My husband is not from a military family either. His dad worked
at Shamrock Foods, which is a big dairy distributor down there, and
his mom usually stayed at home, but she started working right before
he left as a secretary at the church.
[My husband] decided to go into the military to get away. He was
tired of it. He had been engaged, and his fiancée dumped him, and so
15
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he wanted to get away, and he thought that the Army was the solu-
tion, and because he wanted to get away from Arizona. He wanted
to see different things. Now, I don’t understand why. He had a great
job at Wal-Mart, and I had a job at the vet clinic, and I was going to
school.
I graduated from high school before I met him, and then I got a
semester in business management while we were dating. We started
dating the beginning of August. Four months after we were dating,
we got married. He was gone for a month for basic training, and he
came back for Christmas leave, and we got married on December 27
so I could come with him. We wanted to get married. We were not
going to get married until August of the following year, but I didn’t
want to be without him. [I knew I wanted to marry him.] It just kind
of clicked the first time I met him. He said the same thing. It was just
there. And I never felt that way before, and he said the same thing,
even though he had been engaged before he met me. He said he never
felt that way with her. So, I never thought I’d be here, but I am.
I knew he had joined the military when we started dating. He
made that decision long before we met, so there was no way he could
get out of it. I asked him several times if there was any way he could
get out of the Army, and he kept trying, and they told him no. [He’s
in for] four years. He’s got two more years.
Relationship With Family

[My family] hates it that we have to be so far away. And I hate it
that we have to be so far away. Both my parents and Ted’s parents
live in the same town. And then 70 miles away, his grandparents and
his aunts and uncles all live there. It’s sad that Eric [our one-year-old
son] doesn’t get to see them every day. My brother David is 18. He’s
fixing to move away from home soon. My brother Josh just turned
16. He’s still got a couple of years. Ted’s brother Chad just turned 18
also. He’s fixing to go to college or something, but in the town his
parents live, so he’ll still be at home. His sister is 15, so she’s still got
quite a ways to go. So they’re all there together, and we are here.
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DANA’S STORY 17
Ted’s dad is coming here on the 18th, and Ted hasn’t seen his dad
in two years. So he’s excited. And this is the first chance his dad has
had to come see him. He’s not going to take leave while his dad is
here, but they’re going to let him go home early during the days and
stuff like that. They’re going to the field, but they’re not taking him.
My mom is coming in September. She is going to help me cele-
brate Eric’s first birthday on September 15. She came two days after
he was born. She came the day I got out of the hospital. Ted hasn’t
seen her in a year, but Eric and I saw her December 30 through Feb-
ruary 15 of this year.
Family Plans
[Our marriage has] gotten a lot better, but it was really bad for a
while. We jumped in head first. We didn’t want to have kids for at
least two years, and then I got pregnant on our honeymoon. Eric was
an accident. That’s why we had Eric. That’s why I say I wish I hadn’t
had him, but I’m glad I did, because I love him to death. [But] I really,
really wish we could have waited.
It was really bad at first because I guess I didn’t really want to
take on the responsibility of taking care of a child so young, and I
wanted to go to school, and I can’t go to school right now. I have to
take care of Eric, and then we don’t have the finances for me to go to
school, so I don’t know what to do. I am just 20 years old.
It’s hard. This is my first child, and I am already saying it is hard
to raise the baby by myself. Just because when [Ted’s] not here, it’s
real tough on me. Sometimes I’m real glad to have [Eric], but some-
times I just wish he wasn’t here.
We plan on having two more [kids]. We are going to start having
another one when he comes back from Kuwait [in about 9 months],
because Eric will be almost two then.
Two months later, on the topic of pregnancy, after she finds out
she is pregnant again: This is another one that was not planned.
[I’m not excited] about this baby, because my husband won’t be
here when the baby comes. He will be in Kuwait, and there is noth-
ing I can do about it. He will be gone regardless. I am due right
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around the 23rd of April, and he’s supposed to be back anywhere

from around the 21st to the 5th of May, which it could be anywhere
before that or after that, but there is nothing I can do. Unless I am
having major complications, they won’t keep him behind. [It will be
hard, because] this time I am going to need his help. The last time I
was pregnant, I didn’t have any kids to take care of. Now I have Eric.
I don’t know how I’ll do this. Hopefully, I can get some of my friends
to come and stay with me for a little while. [Already it’s been hard.]
We really were scared that I was going to have a miscarriage for a lit-
tle while. They told me not to be lifting on [Eric], and I’m like won-
derful, how do I do that? I have to lift him. I can’t just say I can’t lift
you Eric, I’m sorry, and he cries his heart out.
If this baby is a girl, that’s it. My husband is getting taken care
of. He has already said it. He promised me long before we had Eric,
a boy and a girl, and that’s it, I’m getting done. [If this is a boy], we’ll
think about it. We are going to think really hard if I want to go
through this again.
You can’t afford to have them. I mean keeping them is not half as
bad as having them. I wasn’t too worried with Eric, but now that we
are having a second one, I am really worried about whether or not
we are going to make it.
Financial Issues
My husband is an E-3. Money is really tight. The military’s okay,
because they provide everything to you, but they pay you so little,
and they expect you to live off of it. When he was an E-2, I tried to
get food stamps, and they said he made $100 too much, so I couldn’t
get them. And I know a sergeant with two kids, who is on food
stamps. I figured it would help us out, but they wouldn’t even give
them to us. And that’s weird, because I am on WIC.1 They go by your
base pay, not by your gross net income, which is kind of stupid,
because after taxes we have like $200 less.
1Women, Infants, Children. This Department of Agriculture program provides nutrition and education for
pregnant, breastfeeding, and postpartum women; infants; and young children, with participation based on
need as determined by income.
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DANA’S STORY 19
[The trouble began when we moved into the townhouse.] We

moved into the town house three weeks after we got here, and we
moved out in December of 1997. My husband picked it out. He liked
it because it was big, but it was $425 a month, which was hard on us
because it was more than [our housing allowance], and then the elec-
tricity usually ran $100, and we had long distance on our phone,
which ran us about $300 a month, with all our family being across
the country. And we had our car payment, which was $300 a month,
and we couldn’t afford it, so that’s why they repossessed it, and we
had to pay the water bill, and we had a gas bill. It got outrageous. We
just couldn’t afford it.
We got behind in a payment because the Army took $250 out
because he was gone the whole month. So they repossessed the car in
March. The Army said it was separate rations. $250. They don’t real-
ize that that $250 can cover our groceries for two months. We actu-
ally make less money while they are away.
[She provides the LES,2 as shown in Table 2.1.] This is how much
he makes before taxes and before our allotment comes out for rent.
They take it out as soon as he gets paid. With the Army, I never know
from month to month what he is going to get paid.
Regarding the deductions: The “meals provided” deduction is the
separate rats. They’re taking it back out. They give it all to you, but
then they’ll take it back, if he goes to the field. They think that that
feeds just him. $200 and some odd dollars can feed both Ted and me
and Eric for two months.
Regarding the allotments: That was our rent, the $325. The only
way you can stay here if you are in the military is that you do an
allotment, and most places are getting like that because they just
don’t want to handle late payments and things like that.
The $250 is on our repossessed car. We still owe them $9,000.
They sold it, and whatever they sold it for, we owe them for whatever
is over. [We’ll pay that for] years, because we just started paying on
it in September.
The $125 is on our tire loan. I get up every morning and take my
husband to work so that I can have the car to go to work. One morn-
2Leave and Earnings Statement (a paystub).
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Table 2.1 Dana’s Typical Monthly Pay Statement ($)
Pay Base pay 1,118.00

BAS a 429.00
BAHb 404.00
Total pay 1,951.00
Deductions Taxes and medical 171.00
Meals provided 174.00
Total deductions 345.00
Allotments Rent 325.00
Repossessed car 250.00
Tire loan 125.00
CFCc 5.00
Total allotments 705.00
Monthly take-home pay 901.00
NOTE: Here and in the following chapters, this is ac-
tually a representation of the soldier’s pay, unless
stated otherwise.
aBasic Allowance for Subsistence (also known as sep-
arate rations or separate rats).
bBasic Allowance for Housing.
cCombined Federal Campaign (a large-scale annual
fundraising effort that benefits many of the charita-
ble organizations that serve the military community).
ing I was taking him early, and our headlights don’t work so well, so
when I came around the corner off of the highway onto the street
here, I hit the curb and busted out both of the tires on one side. In
order to get them fixed, we got a loan through a loan company and
got them fixed. That’s the only way we could have done it. We
couldn’t have done it on his pay or anything like that. It was a $500
loan, and we have to pay $125 for six months, so they are getting 50
percent of their loan. I thought that was really stupid. There is no
way I am paying them 50 percent of their loan, but AER3 wouldn’t
help us, because they said, it was something about it wasn’t bad
enough as to where we needed a loan from them, like if the trans-
mission went out or something in the car, then they would give us a
loan, but with the tires blown, they wouldn’t. I don’t think I even
went in there. I think I told my husband I didn’t want to go in there.
3Army Emergency Relief. A financial aid program run through the Army Community Services (ACS) that
offers grants and loans for financial emergencies but has strict limitations as to what qualifies as an emer-
gency.
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DANA’S STORY 21
He was the one who went in there and took care of it, so I don’t even
know how it went with them. I just try not to bother with most mil-
itary things because they look down upon me more than they actu-
ally treat me as an equal.
But that’s why people give people in the military loans. Because
they can do an allotment, and they know they will get paid.
The CFC money actually goes to ACS. We don’t have a choice.
Everybody pays it. Which is dumb, because we couldn’t get a loan
through them.4
Regarding her income: I have to work. I am a veterinarian tech-
nician. I always wanted to be a veterinarian. It takes eight years of
school to be one. I can go under the GI bill, but I still need to work.
We can’t make it without me working. We’ve had some rough times,
but we are doing better now. Financially, it’s hard still, but even that
is better. We always have unexpected bills, but I have my job now, so
it’s a lot better.
My salary would depend on how many hours I worked a week,
but I made minimum wage ($5.15 an hour). At first, I was getting 40
hours a week. But then they started hiring more people, so I got less,
anywhere between $200 and a $100 a week. I paid a dollar an hour
for daycare, and it depended on how many hours I worked. A friend
of mine watched Eric. But she is pregnant also, so she has stopped
baby-sitting, which was fine for me, because I lost my job. But I
talked to one of the ladies (her husband is in the same platoon as my
husband), and she knew one of the ladies that did baby-sitting, and I
talked to this lady, and she said [she’d] take on the same rate that my
other baby-sitter was doing, which was a $1.00 an hour, but I never
ended up having to use her as a baby-sitter, so if I do go back to
work, she said she would baby-sit if she was still there, because the
post daycare system has a long waiting list. I went down there to see,
and you have to pay a $25 registration fee, and then you have to fill
out all this paperwork, saying that your child is up to date on his
shots and this and that, and give them beneficiaries, all sorts of
things, and as far as I know, they go by your income, and whatever
4CFC is a voluntary charitable contribution, but soldiers may feel pressured by unit leadership to con-
tribute.
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your income is, then they establish how much it is going to cost. It’s
expensive, and they have two different kinds of daycare. They have
the regular daycare, which went from like 5 to 6 and you had to pick
them up by 6, no later than that. And I am like, that wouldn’t work
for me because most of the time I worked past 6:30, and what about
when my husband wasn’t there, like when he is in the field, like now,
he’s in the field, and then they had other daycare, which I guess where
people would do it in their home, and it was hourly, and it all
depended on how much the people wanted to charge you. I said for-
get this, I’ll go find my own baby-sitter.
After she lost her job: They laid me off because I am pregnant. I
told her I was pregnant, and slowly but surely she started hiring more
people and then told me to go. “We don’t need you to work here any
more.” She didn’t say verbally that she was laying me off because I
was pregnant, but she said “because of health reasons,” so I know it
was because I was pregnant. I spoke to some of my husband’s
sergeants, and they said she can say health reasons, and it will be
legal.
OSHA,5 the health board [says I have to tell my employer I’m
pregnant]. See, I had to tell the people I worked with at the vet clinic
that I was pregnant, and that was because I was working around ani-
mals, but as far as OSHA goes, I was not allowed to work unless I
had a doctor’s excuse, and I couldn’t see the doctor until my preg-
nancy test from the hospital came back positive. The first time it
didn’t, and the second time it did, which wasn’t until October that it
came back positive, and then I didn’t even get in to see—you have to
go through an OB6 registration class in order to be seen by the doc-
tor at the hospital, and I didn’t go through that class until October
5—and I am not even going to see the doctor until this Friday. So I
was laid off way before I could have gotten the doctor’s pass to be
able to work. They won’t see you in the hospital until you are 12
weeks anyway, and I am barely 12 weeks. And then the way they do
it you cannot go into labor and delivery until you are 20 weeks along.
If anything happens, you have to go to ER,7 which I was in ER like
5Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
6Obstetrical, obstetrician.
7Emergency room.
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DANA’S STORY 23
last week. I waited three hours. I was bleeding and having cramps,
and I was there three hours. I thought, “thanks a lot people, I could
have lost my baby, and you guys make me wait for three hours.”
But [the medical care] is free. I can complain all I want, but it’s
still free. I would prefer to go to a civilian doctor and to a civilian
hospital, but then I would have to pay 20 percent of the cost, which
having a baby, it isn’t cheap. So 20 percent would probably be like
$2,000. And we definitely cannot afford that.
It will be hard now. We sometimes have to call some of our bill
collectors and say, hey, look you guys, we can’t pay you a whole lot
this month, you’ll just have to take like ten bucks, and in the State of
Georgia, it is legal to do that. As long as you are paying them some-
thing, they can’t come to see you.
Regarding the monthly bills [See Table 2.2]: It’s really hard, really
hard. We don’t have to worry about our rent because we know that’s
paid for [in an allotment], but then everything else we have to worry
about. I have all the bills in my notebook, and I have a divider for
each bill. I have to do this or I get lost. I hated the way my husband
had it. My filing cabinet is like this too. I have all the old bills filed
away.
Table 2.2 Dana’s Monthly Bills ($)
Orthodontist ($1,600 debt) 20.00

Cell phone 45.00
Car insurance 69.00
Power 80.00
Local phone 20.00
Storage unit 40.00
AAFESa credit card ($580 debt) 65.00
Credit card (J.C. Penney) 20.00
Credit card (Target) 20.00
Encyclopedia ($1,700) 60.00
Bed 20.00
Car 75.00
Total monthly bills 534.00
aArmy and Air Force Exchange Service (the military
store on base; most locations carry the same items as a
small department store).
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The first is the orthodontist. [When I told my parents I was get-

ting married, my mom] said “if you get married now, I am giving you
this bill,” and just to get her off my back I said okay, because there
was nothing she could do. I was 18 years old. What was she going to
do, tell me no? That was how I ended up with that orthodontist bill.
As of right now, I think I owe $1,600. I pay like $20 a month. That’s
all they get. They are not very happy, but they can’t do anything
about it. Mom always tells me that you don’t want to make the same
mistakes we did and this and that, but I told her the only way I am
ever going to learn is that we do it ourselves. We have already made
the mistake of having our car repossessed. Ted and I know that we
should not have bought a brand new car. We’ve known that from the
beginning, but we were just too hardheaded to let it go through, but
we realize that mistake. We’ve learned so much from that mistake,
and we did file bankruptcy, but it never went through, because we
decided we didn’t want to. It was hurting us more than it was help-
ing us.
We have the cell phone, which we will be stopping soon, because
my husband wants to turn it off. It usually runs about $45 a month.
Our car insurance, which just went up to $68 or $69 on the one car
we have. We were paying like $50, and now it’s $69. And then power
usually runs us about $80. We just have local phone, so we just pay
about $20 a month. We have a storage unit for which we pay about
$40 a month on that. We keep junk in it. Anything that we couldn’t
fit in here. We used to live in a three bedroom townhouse, which was
huge. We are sharing it [the storage unit] with a friend of ours right
now. We pay half of it, and we can do our laundry at their house,
however much we want. We will get rid of it when we move to quar-
ters, so they have got to get all their stuff out of there. Quarters have
a hookup for a washer and a dryer, and we have a washer, but we
don’t have a dryer.
Then we have our AAFES bill, which is our UCDPP8 card, and
depending on how much my husband spends on clothing and every-
thing, it usually runs about $65 a month that we have to pay on this.
The $65 is to pay off current debt. We have about $580.00 on the
8Uniform Clothing Deferred Payment Plan (a special credit service that can be used to buy merchandise
in the Military Clothing Sales Store with no annual fee and no interest rate).
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DANA’S STORY 25
card, and he keeps putting more on it, and I’m going to kill him for
it. I am the money manager. I just got upset with him because he went
out to that Freedom TV and Stereo place down by Wal-Mart. He
went out there and got a loan and bought $2,000 worth of stereo
equipment. We can’t afford to do that! I got so mad at him. I don’t
know what to do. I don’t know how to tell him we can’t afford this.
I think he thinks that because he will be making more money [since
he’s about to be promoted to E-4] that he can spend more money
now, but that’s not the case. But no, because we ain’t got no money.
I have a couple of credit cards myself, but I haven’t used them for
months. I have just been paying on them since then. I have my Tar-
get and J.C. Penney’s, and I pay them $20 a month.
We also have this loan to this company for encyclopedias, and I
am not even sure how much we still owe. It was $2,000. I think it is
like $1,700 now, and we pay them $60 a month. That is if we don’t
get behind, and we can’t pay them. We bought them long before Eric
was born. I was about four months pregnant when we decided to get
them, because you never know when you’re going to need them. And
then we thought I was going to go to school, so I thought I would be
able to use them a lot.
And we are paying on our bed, which is $79 a month. The peo-
ple at the furniture store were so nice to us [when we started having
financial problems]. They kept saying that they were going to come
and repossess it. We called them and said, hey look, we can make
small payments every month if you will let us keep it. They said keep
the bed and pay on it slowly, but the people we bought the car from
came and picked it right up just like that.
And then the only other bill that I can think of is we have a title
pawn on our car which we spend $75 a month just so they don’t
repossess the car, which we owe them $375 every month, but we
can’t afford to give them the whole amount. So it just keeps adding
up. The $75 doesn’t reduce the amount we owe them, but if we pay
$75 that just holds them off until the next month. It just keeps going
like a circle. We have been paying the $75 [for four months], and we
can’t pay it off. I thought about [getting a loan to pay off the princi-
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ple], but I just don’t want another allotment because we have already
got so many allotments, and then the one with the stereo equipment
is another allotment. That’s another $103 out of his check. I haven’t
included that because it’s next month, and I haven’t done next
month’s bills yet.
We asked [my parents] one time for a loan, for a $300 loan, and
my mother went into this long conversation about how she shouldn’t
help us and this and that. She just went on and on, saying that we’re
always going to come to them if we need money. So I never even
bother with her. I just try to not talk about my finances at all with my
parents. But when I call, they go into it. I think they are doing actu-
ally well because they had to file bankruptcy some years back when
I was younger, and they are just getting out of it now, and she is doing
great. I mean she has just bought a new car. She bought one of those
97 or 98 Oldsmobile Intrigues. Paid like $24,000 for it, and then they
are looking into buying a house, and they just bought two new
horses, and then she talks about how she can’t help me pay my ortho-
dontist bill, which was her bill to begin with. She just handed it over
to me and told me to pay for it.
They do send things to Eric, though, all the time. My mom just
came and visited around Eric’s birthday, which was the 15th of last
month, and she brought a whole big suitcase full of stuff for Eric, and
while she was here, she bought close to $400 worth of stuff for him.
It would be nice if she helped us with groceries instead, but I
don’t care. They are for Eric. We usually survive on our grocery bill.
It’s no big deal. We can spend $200 every two months. We have a
friend, her husband is an E-5, and she just doesn’t understand how
we can spend $100 every month and survive, and I said it’s easy. If
you go to the commissary, and I tell my husband to do this, and he
had never done it before, always get the family size things, like the
big packages of meat and things like that. It goes a lot further. And
then with our bread, we buy like three or four loaves, and we freeze
the other ones because all you have to do is pull them out and put
them in the refrigerator, and they last forever. And then we get milk
and cheese and eggs and all that on WIC, so I don’t have to worry
about that.
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DANA’S STORY 27
I get four vouchers from WIC per month, and I usually use one a
week. They have different things on some of them. I just used one
that I got milk, cheese, dried beans. [It tells you what they are good
for], and there is only a certain brand, and you have to get certain
sizes of things. I get formula from WIC, but they don’t give you all
that much. All the way up until they are a year, they only give you 31
cans a month. That’s like a can a day. My son goes through more
than a can a day. He’s eating people food now, so that helps out a lot.
And I’ve been trying to get him on real milk. Since he’s ten months
old, he’ll be on it soon with WIC, and so if I don’t get him on it, he’ll
be like “where’s the formula?” We tried him on the whole milk, and
that just gives him a lot of gas, so we had to go to 2 percent, and he’s
fine on the 2 percent. And they’re probably going to tell me that I
can’t give him the 2 percent, because they tell you how to feed him,
what to feed him, when to feed him, how to break him off the bot-
tle, and this and that. I am like, this is my son, I can do what I want
with him.
While I was in the hospital with Eric—for two days, because they
make you stay in there two days—I hated it because I wanted to go
home; I hated staying there. It felt so cold in there. The nurses didn’t
care. None of them ever came to see how you were doing. They never
came to see if you needed anything. They just expected you to get up
and do it all yourself, and then if you had the baby in your room, you
cannot take it to the nursery if you have to take a shower. You have
to take it in the bathroom with you and take a shower with the baby.
And they wouldn’t give my husband maternity leave, so he couldn’t
be there with me the whole time.
Also, you have to go in to WIC. At first, I was going in once a
month. When I was pregnant I was going in every month. They
would take your blood from your finger and test your sugar and all
that. They would take your weight and all that stuff. You have to go
to a nutritionist and tell them what you have been eating, and I’m
like, does it matter what I’ve been eating, just be happy that I’m eat-
ing, okay. Then when Eric was born, I had to go in once a month
when he was real little and had to tell them how much formula he
was eating a day and when he started drinking juice, tell them how
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much juice, what kind of foods he was eating, how many times a day
he was eating, and for the longest time they would tell me that he was
underweight, and that he was too short for his age. They kept telling
me that he needed to get taller, and they had a scale, and they would
mark my baby’s progress. Eric was always below the average per-
centile. They’d say, “this is not normal, and I don’t know what you
are doing wrong.” They treat you like you were a child. And now
that I am having a second one, now all you have to do is mark off yes
I know this, yes I know that, etc., and they will leave me alone.
And it’s not just go in and get out. You go in; they take forever
to call your name, you have to go in this one room, and they prick
your finger and do your weight and all that, and you have to go back
out in the waiting room and wait to talk to the nutritionist, and then
you have to come back out and wait for them to give you your vouch-
ers, which takes you somewhere around three hours or more.
When I was working, I kept telling them look I have an hour,
that’s it. And they would say we will try to hurry you as fast as we
can. There could be nobody in the waiting room, but I would still
have to wait about three hours, and then they got into a new build-
ing, and they have a new rule that you can’t bring a stroller in there,
and only one parent in there at a time. It doesn’t matter if you have
five kids. You can only have one parent with no strollers. There was
one lady that came in one time with a double stroller, and she had a
broken leg, and they told her to take the stroller outside. People are
idiots.
But as long as I’m on WIC, I always have to go in. And then you
have to go in once a year for recertification. You have to tell them
how much you are making and a whole bunch of stuff. It’s stupid. I
do this every year, and we’re still the same. A friend of mine is on
WIC right now, because [her husband] is an E-4. He is making the
maximum pay for an E-4, but I don’t know what that is, and he is
soon going to get sergeant, but as soon as he gets sergeant, she can’t
get WIC any more because he’ll make too much, even though they are
going to have a baby. I don’t understand that, because I see some
sergeants with one kid that go in there, and they have WIC, and they
have been getting it forever. I see some sergeants that have one kid
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DANA’S STORY 29
that go and get food stamps, and they have been getting them forever
too, which I don’t understand.
When I had one baby, the only way I could do it was to get a lot
of help from my parents. A lot of help. Like my mom will get some
clothes and shoes. And diapers came out of my weekly check. Dia-
pers and baby food and dog food and cat food.
Now I’m not working. Hopefully, [with two kids] we will qual-
ify for food stamps, and I am not sure because I know that when he
was an E-2, he is an E-3 now, we didn’t qualify for food stamps. He
made $100 more than what they wanted. The E-3 pay helps some,
but they’re taking our housing allowance away because we’re mov-
ing on base.
[The money will increase some when he gets promoted to E-4],
but not a whole lot. I don’t even think it will change because our
housing allowance is being taken away, and as far as I know it as an
E-3, the allowance is about $425. We will be losing money because
we pay $325 here, and we pay like $80 for power. [So we have some
left over money from the housing allowance each month.] I don’t
think [the pay difference from E-3 to E-4] is going to be that much.
Maybe, maybe, if we are lucky, it will be a $100 more a month.
We just don’t go out. We try not to make extra trips. We conserve
as much as we can. We barely scrimp by on gas every month as it is.
Like before, when I had my job, I would put like $20 aside for gas
every week.
Career Ambition and Current Work

I’m not trying to get another job. Not right now. I really don’t
want one. I like staying home with Eric. My husband is pressuring me
to get a job [because of the money], but I know that with me being
pregnant and having another one at home that they are not going to
hire somebody like that, and you have to tell them you are pregnant,
and you have to work there at least six months until you can get
maternity leave.
But I look ahead to when I can be a vet. I can’t wait. I love work-
ing with animals, and I’ve always wanted to be one. I was practically
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a straight A student in high school, and I really regret not going to

college right after high school. I love Eric to death, but sometimes I
just wish I could put him on hold or something so that I could finish
some kind of college. Because it would have been wonderful if I had
gone at least four years.
I didn’t really want to take on the responsibility of taking care of
a child so young, and I wanted to go to school, and I can’t go to
school right now. I have to take care of Eric, and then we don’t have
the finances for me to go to school, so I don’t know what to do. I am
just 20 years old. I’ll go back eventually. I might be 30 when I go back
to school, but I’ll go back. See, I have ten years of college for what I
want to major in, which is veterinary medicine, so I have a long time.
By the time I’m 40, I’ll graduate from college.
My husband has talked to the people at the educational center,
and they said I could be in school tomorrow, but we can’t make it
without me working.
His Future in the Military

He’s getting out. He’s already told me he’s not going to stay in.
It’s too stressful on him, and on me, and on the baby. It’s just too
much. But I’m scared to get out of the military, I really am. Because
here they provide medical, everything for you. We don’t have to pay
for medical or anything like that. Like when I had Eric, I paid $32
when I got out of the hospital, and that was it. And the labor and
delivery I went through, I probably would have had to pay over
$5,000.
He wants to go back to Wal-Mart. When he gets out, we will go
back. I want to go back to school, but I doubt that will happen.
We’ve got two more years. I don’t know what we are going to do
when the two years are over because it’s hard, I know the military is
hard—he’s always gone—but there’s always that at least in the Army
you have that security; you are always going to get a paycheck no
matter what, no matter if he doesn’t work a week or something like
that, or he’s gone. You are always going to get that paycheck, and
then there is always the security of not having to worry about med-
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DANA’S STORY 31
ical bills. I don’t have to worry about medical bills, which is great.
They can provide housing for you, and then you don’t have to worry
about rent, water, electricity, etc. It offers a lot of great benefits, but
there are a lot of downsides to the military, too. I guess that’s why
people say the military has the highest divorce rate. It’s because the
spouse, male or female, is always gone. It makes it hard for someone
who has children because I am always here to take care of Eric. Even-
tually, I get tired of taking care of Eric, and I’m like, I want somebody
else to take care of him, and [Ted’s] not here, so I get mad at him, and
there is nothing he can do.
Deployment
The longest he has been gone since we’ve been here was a month,
and that was to NTC.8 He will be gone in January. I’m not real happy
about that. If I didn’t have Eric, I wouldn’t mind. I survived when he
was in basic training for four months. If I were alone, I could do it,
but with Eric it’s harder. When [Ted] leaves, Eric is going to be walk-
ing and by the time he comes back he’ll be walking and talking, and
it will be a whole different story. [Ted] doesn’t want to leave.
When [Ted] went to NTC, I didn’t stay here. I went home for a
month and a half. He was gone for a month. Eric was six months old
when I left.
This time [Ted’ll] leave sometime between December 1 to the
15th, anytime between there, so it will be real hard. It will be our first
Christmas apart, although our first Christmas together wasn’t so
great either because there was just the three of us, but I will be back
home with my family for a little while just because I don’t want to
spend the holidays by myself. My mom’s buying me a ticket. He’s tak-
ing leave, and he’s going home November 14 through the 21st, and
his parents are paying for him to go home because he hasn’t been
home in two years, and he is taking Eric with him, but I won’t go
home until Christmas.
8National Training Center (a month-long training exercise held in the California desert).
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Family Support Group

I’m a little involved in the Family Support Group. As much as
they call me. They don’t call me very often. The lady that’s the con-
tact—her and I don’t speak. We don’t get along. And it’s a lot harder
since I’m one of the youngest wives. I guess they’re a lot more dis-
criminating against the younger wives. They don’t like to be around
you.
Lately, though, one of the girls has been calling me, and telling
me everything that is going on, which I didn’t really understand half
of the stuff that was going on in family support because no one had
ever set down and really explained it to me. Like, for instance, I
didn’t know that they had these things called family team-building
classes, which what you do is you go from 9 in the morning until 2
in the afternoon, and your husband gets the day off so he can take
care of the kids, but you go in—just the wife goes in—you go in, and
it’s like a class, and you learn all the abbreviations like MOS,9 LES,
etc., and if you know the stuff, then it is easier for you, and after so
many classes they have a test, and if you pass the test, it is college
credit, which I didn’t know this, and I’m like cool, I can do this. They
haven’t had any lately, but they are having one on November 3 that
I am going to go to.
They asked me to volunteer, when there was that big scare about
the war in Kuwait, they got a bunch of wives together to sew the
patches on their BDUs.10 And since I had worked with a seamstress
before, they asked me if I would show them how to do it, and since
I wasn’t doing anything, it was no big deal, but I had to bring Eric
along. It was hard, having Eric crying in the background while I was
trying to do this. I only agreed to do it because a lot of the guys in his
platoon were there. I know a lot of the single soldiers, since he is
friends with them. But I don’t know many of the married ones. I
think it’s easier on the single soldiers because they don’t have to
worry about much of anything, and when they get leave they can just
pick up and go home. A lot of them do that.
9The Military Occupational Specialty (the code for an individual’s occupation in the Army).
10Battle Dress Uniform (the camouflaged field uniforms).
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DANA’S STORY 33
There are not any women in the Family Support Group that I am
friendly with. I really don’t know any of them. When my husband
deploys, they will have more meetings, but I won’t go. I don’t feel
comfortable around them because they don’t really acknowledge that
you are there, especially since I am so young. I feel so out of place. A
friend of mine, the friend that is 18, she doesn’t like to go either
because she feels so out of place too because she is so young. And I
am sure there are other wives; I am not sure how many are my age,
but I am sure there are others who feel just as out of place as I do.
Just like the ball we went to in August. You could tell who was
the head of family support and who was the captains’ wives and who
was the colonels’ wives. Because they would just all group together.
Like when everybody was dancing, they would all group together and
laugh and have drinks and take pictures. You could tell.
But we didn’t really get to choose who we get to sit with. Because
he was on the color guard, we had to sit with people in the color
guard, which I knew maybe one person from there. I wore my senior
prom dress, and actually I fit into it better now than I did back then.
And I did my hair. It took me 30 minutes to do my hair. I saw it in
one of those Frederick’s of Hollywood catalogues. It was up in the
back and all curly and the tendril in the front.
Rank Among the Spouses

I know one of the captain’s wives, and I think he’s in the Alpha
company, but she’s always coming into the clinic with her dog, and
she’s so nice. She’s the only one I know. Most of the officers’ wives
think they are better than the enlisted wives. I guess because they get
more money, and they live in better housing, and they get this and
that. They just think they are better, which makes me mad, and then
they put you down because you are an enlisted member’s wife. I don’t
associate with them because they seem snotty. There are probably a
lot of nice women, but because of the way they present themselves, I
don’t want to be friends with them.
No, I don’t even know half of the enlisted wives in our unit. Like,
Ted had a friend, and we’ve known him since he was a specialist. He
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got married, and they were going to be Eric’s godparents, but then he
got promoted, and the way she has treated Eric and the way she’s
treated Ted, ever since her husband made sergeant, I won’t talk to her
anymore.
They look down on me, like “she is just an E-3’s wife.” Like a
friend of mine, she is 18, she is married to an E-3. They look down
on her a lot because she just barely turned 18, and they have been
married almost two years. [They look down on us because we’re
young, and because] she doesn’t have a high school diploma, and
she’s not going anywhere with her life right now.
I can’t get anything done by myself. They wouldn’t even let me
sign a 30-day [notice] for this place unless I had a power of attorney,
which is stupid. Everybody around here is like that. If you don’t have
a power of attorney, sometimes even if you do, it doesn’t matter, they
will not even consider talking to you. If you are not the one in the
military or if they don’t accept power of attorney, you might as well
walk out the door, because they aren’t even going to look at you.
I just wish I didn’t live in a military town because it was not like
this at home, and there were two military bases at home, and the
town—I mean this town—thrives on the military. If the military
wasn’t here, this town wouldn’t be here. I think it is just the fact that
they are so dependent on the military. The military base provides
power to most of the city of Hinesville because they own Georgia
Power, and I know that during Desert Storm, Hinesville and all the
surrounding towns went bankrupt.
Army Policy on Families

I don’t know what the Army expects of us. They don’t tell us any-
thing. They always say that the family is first, but when it comes to
family, they just don’t care. Like lately with this Kuwait thing, they
would call the wives eight hours before the husbands were supposed
to be there, so they wouldn’t know more than eight hours before that
they were going to be on that flight, which was sad. They called them
eight hours before they landed at Hunter to tell wives their husband
would be on that flight. It would have made a huge difference if they
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DANA’S STORY 35
had told us as soon as they knew, like when the unit was getting on
the plane over there. I know there were some wives that were gone.
And my friend’s husband came home Saturday morning at 1:00. She
said she waited four hours in the parking lot for him, and her little
boy was, gosh, a year old when he left, and now he’s almost two
years old.
[Army doesn’t support junior enlisted families], because for the
longest time, we have been waiting for base housing, but he has to get
an E-4 before we can get housing.
Housing
[After we got into financial trouble because of the townhouse, we
moved into this trailer.] I like the trailer park we live in now. [My hus-
band] picked this place. At the time when he showed it to me, I didn’t
mind, so I said okay. This one I think is one of the much better ones.
A friend of ours lives—you go behind the Amoco, there’s a street
behind it right there, there are a couple of trailer parks—they live in
one just down from Amoco, and it’s not even nice at all. It’s worse
than this one right here, and they pay as much as we do.
If they had yards, and they allowed pets, I’d love it. The security
level is pretty good too. They give you monthly newsletters that tell
you what’s going on, and I got one the other day, and it said a cou-
ple of the trailers got broken into, I guess because people left them
unlocked. I never leave this unlocked. And I’m not real worried
because the dog is here with me.
[But] I don’t know my neighbors. They’re not really neighbor-
friendly. The lady across the street that used to live there, she just
kind of gave me a dirty look every time I walked out the door, so I
thought “forget that.” My husband says he has met the people next
door, but I haven’t because I guess I haven’t been here when they were
there. They are never home when I am here. Then [there are] the peo-
ple across the street. They are always having a party. There are
always like six cars out in front of their house, so I don’t know what
the deal is, and they are always home. I guess they never go to work.
robin-bobin
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Towards S.E. a large lake, extending between the shore and a wood
an hour distant. Fishermen from a village in the neighbourhood are
employed in making the water disturbed in its narrow outlets, and
covering these with wicker and fishing-baskets. At half-past one
o’clock, E.N.E., where another village appears on the right shore;
then E. up to four o’clock, and with the rope, for the east wind has
set in. This wind is, however, too faint to advance with sails S.W.
Even rowing does not assist us, and we at first advance Libàhn.
I interpret it as a good omen that I am in such a cheerful humour
to-day, arising a good deal from my present state of health. Poor
Sabatier, on the contrary, seems to be going fast to certain death,
through his own melancholy and Arnaud’s heartlessness, for he is
continually affected with fever and will never hear of any diet. At
half-past four o’clock, S.S.W. Our vessel draws water, whereupon we
fire two shots as signals of distress; but no care was taken about us,
because the wind had become a little stronger, and we make about a
mile; before, we had scarcely made half a mile in the hour. We sail,
therefore, “Alla kerim,” behind the others, although the water visibly
rises in the hold, and we have not even pumps. We halt, about five
o’clock, at the corner, where the river goes from S.S.W. to E.N.E.
Here we have an extensive view of the scenery, an immeasurably
flat country, with yellow grass, which seems to have been merely
overflowed a little by the water, although the shores are only two
feet high. Numberless ant-hills stand around. In the background we
remark a forest without shade. A German prince said to Ahmed
Basha in Kahira, “I have found forests here, but no shade in them.”
Two negroes greet and make signs to us, but in vain, for they do
not bring oxen, and we have already to-day distrained ten. At half-
past five o’clock we left this place, and sailed E.N.E. into a canal,
scarcely fifty paces broad, having on the right an ambak-thicket,
with a fore-ground of aquatic grass, and on the left a margin of
reeds. This last is said to belong to an island, but we do not observe
there either tree or shrub. After sunset, from E. to S.; then again
eastward, and lastly S.S.W. The wind again becomes very slack;
therefore rowing and singing, contention and strife, among the crew,
who get one before the other. A short bend to N., but a bad sandy
point of land for oars and poles. The wind blows from S.W., and we
sail E. by S., and still somewhat N.E., when it again slackens, and we
are obliged to torment ourselves in an E.N.E. direction.
We come here unexpectedly upon four rivers, according to the
expression of the Arabs. The Nile separates into two arms, into
those in which we had come, and in those which we had left to
N.W., and afterwards at our back; again it splits into two arms
above, of which the smaller one ascends upwards to E. and our arm
to E.N.E. The island, the lower portion of which we saw this morning
at seven o’clock, is therefore confirmed by the arm flowing away to
N.W.
Baùda! Baùda! Everyone is fanning and striking off the gnats,
especially in Suliman Kashef’s vessel, where the crew have armed
themselves with the corollas of the giant rushes, to be used as fans.
The east wind is faint, the sky cloudy, and always Libàhn to N.E. till
nine o’clock. A floating island wheeled our ship round, anchor and
all; this also frequently happens at night. Thermometer 18°, 25°,
28°, and 23° Reaumur.
2nd January.—Selim Capitan now asserts that he navigated, in
the first expedition, this arm of the Nile in which we are at present.
That arm, from which, three days ago, we returned at night, would
be, according to this statement, a tributary, or an arm, ending when
the water falls in a cul-de-sac. But where is now the Muts, which
was pointed out to us as a nearer Nile arm, and the beginning of
which ought to have shewn itself?—for we saw already the mouth of
it yesterday morning near the village of Bonn. At ten o’clock we go,
by the rope, to E. by S.
On the right, to the west, we remark an arm of the Nile, which
can be no other than the commencement of the little one seen
yesterday evening, pouring itself yonder from the east, when we
were going E.N.E. It is a wonder that the Nile does not divide into
far more arms in these level regions; although it may be presumed
with certainty that many gohrs are lost in the reeds, or slink again to
the river, without being visible by us. The stream goes from here
S.E. and E., and we halt S.E. on the right shore. The river appears
again to separate in front of us.
I cannot help laughing when I hear the Reïs say to the lazy
sailors, “Are you Muslems or Christians?” in order to tickle their
sense of honour. Yet Nazrani is more a contemptuous expression for
the Christian Rajahs than for Europeans, who are called Franks;
although they abuse Arnaud and his vessel, by way of pre-eminence,
with the title of “Nazrani,” because his conduct towards the men is
very forbidding. From one to five o’clock in continued serpentine
movements between S. and E. At half-past five o’clock, some
minutes S.W. by S., and then again in an easterly direction.
Throughout the day I was hot, languid, and sleepy, which I looked
upon as the forebodings of fever, to which my three servants had
already succumbed. Now I dread the night, and an incessant
yawning gives me no sweet foretaste of the future.
We work over the shallows from W. by S. to E.N.E., and sail
lastly, after sunset, at half-past six o’clock, slowly in a bend to E.S.E.,
and immediately W.N.W., and in eight minutes S.S.E. We tried, by
using oars, poles, and sails, to get to N.E., and then halted. Here we
saw to the N.E. an arm of the Nile flowing to S., the mouth of which
we ought to have seen yesterday, and it may therefore probably be
the Muts. Subsequently, when all had gone to sleep, a violent habùb
threw the ship on shore; but the wind soon veered to our
advantage. Thermometer 18°, 26°, to 28°, and 25°.
3rd. January—This morning a thick mist, and the hygrometer
92°. In the early part, towing to E.S.E. We sail at eight o’clock with a
still changeable north wind to S.S.E., and about nine o’clock to S.
Here, on the right low shore, where stands some scanty grass, flows
a small canal to the left into the plain to the N.E., and leads probably
to a shallow lake or a low ground, discharging its water in this way.
The negroes, who appear to me to be generally vigorous
Icthyophagists, have established a fishing weir here at the entrance
of this outlet. It consists of a double row of strong stakes, having
between them a deep hole and two openings to let in the fish. We
see by the fresh earth thrown up, that this canal is cleaned out.
Probably the natives take the fish retreating with the water
subsiding, and emptying itself into the Nile, in these passes formed
with stakes, by means of baskets, and the larger ones by harpoons.
No tree, and scarcely any ambaks in the shape of green hills, are
seen.
Ten o’clock. On the left, a little village, with seven well-built
tokuls, the indented roofs of which are, however, tolerably flat, and
on the whole are low. Close by, a large herdsman’s or pastoral
village: the huts are built slightly enough, for they are only inhabited
during grazing-time. Some negroes jump and sing; other men of
ashes bring a cow and a few goats. The people here appear stronger
and more muscular than these high shot-up marsh plants were in
other places, and are on an average six Parisian feet[7] and upwards
in height. Their sheikh or chief was called Tchinkah, and his village
Kuronjah. A piece of white cotton stuff was given him to cover, at
least, the nakedness of his shoulders, and some beads. Several
negroes presented themselves, and they all now wanted “god”
(glass beads). The teeth of the natives are very bad: this is generally
the case in fenny countries; and we see it, for example, in Holland,
where the women have not only bad teeth, but also very frequently
swollen joints. They quarrel here for the beads thrown to them, but
without fighting. Though such ornaments may soon lose the charm
of novelty, yet they may lay the foundation of future discord, and
cause homicide and murder. We saw some strings of blue glass
beads on the chief, looking like broken maccaroni, and of which we
also had brought a good supply. We could not learn from what
country this glass ornament—Vermiglio or conteri di Venezia—had
come to them; it was a proof, however, that communications take
place between these inner African nations. The beads were very
much worn and ground away, and therefore probably an old
inheritance of the tribe.
They wear only a single tuft of hair: it is sometimes long, and
sometimes short, so that they may shew the distinguishing mark of
their race—the incisions running from the forehead in three strokes
around the head. Yet there were some who wore their entire hair,
which is no more to be called woolly than that of the Arabs in the
land of Sudàn. Every one had adorned his head according to his own
taste. Many were bedecked with a short ostrich-feather, others with
a thong of pelt, or with a wooden ring, and one was covered all over
with small burrs. This was that dreadful little burr that used to stick
to our stockings and wide Turkish trowsers in Taka, and drew
together the latter into the most singular folds. Its hook-formed
point or prickle was only extracted from linen with the greatest
trouble. Another wore a felt cap upon which was a tassel, as if he
had taken a Turkish cap for his model.
Tattooing is called by these Keks garo-ungè: they wear slips of
leather round their necks, hands, and also frequently round the hips,
and rings of ivory and iron, varying in number, round the arm. If we
ask them whence the iron comes, they answer, “From the mountain,”
and point to the south. The iron rings are of various forms, furnished
at the joints with small bells—that is, with a small hole, in which
grains are placed to make a rattling noise; or even with small spikes,
in order not to be seized so easily by the enemy. Their points were
covered with little wooden heads, to prevent injury to the wearer.
The bracelets were also adorned in another manner, or were quite
simple, as those on the upper part of the arm,—some narrow, and
others broad. They open in one place, so as to pass over the hand;
but are so exactly joined together, that the opening is scarcely to be
perceived: thus proving the elasticity of iron in good workmanship.
Some wore a shoemakers’ or sadlers’ apron, serving to ward off
darts rather than as a covering, for they all, in other respects, go
naked. The women have a similar apron around the lower part of
their body, as I also saw in the village of Pagnaù; and excepting this
leathern apron, they have no other attire. The lower part of the back
was generally tattooed in many rows by vertical incisions. The
Dinkas appear to have a particular dexterity and perseverance in this
kind of basso-relievo; for we see the female slaves in Khartùm
having their whole thorax covered with such incisions, and even in
the form of festoons of leaves—a kind of toilet that might not be
very pleasant to the tender skin of our coquettish ladies. We saw
also some earrings of red copper, and there was always a hole for
these in the ear; often also many holes in the rim of the ear for
future trinkets, a small stick being placed in them to prevent them
closing. These negroes cross and throw their legs under them in all
directions; so that, compared with them, Orientals and tailors are
only bunglers. They have generally a flexibility in their limbs, which
would not be supposed from the manner in which they tread the
ground.
We had made the good Ethiopians comprehend that a few more
oxen would be welcome to us; but about eleven o’clock a favourable
east wind set in, promising to become still better. We sail to S.S.W.;
but in the space of ten minutes put to land again, so that we might
not leave in the lurch the promised morsels, costing only a few glass
beads. But the people did not shew themselves again; and just as
the sails were bent to proceed on our voyage, the wind also veered,
and blew from S.E.: therefore libàhn. The hygrometer had at ten
o’clock still 58°, whilst this morning it was even 92°. Twelve o’clock.
—E.N.E., and soon E.; where, on the left, a lake is seen, about an
hour and a half long.
After an hour’s progress, we are towed S.S.E. again, and it seems
that we shall follow this direction further. I cannot keep my eyes
open, and go to sleep, with orders to wake me at the first bend in
the river. At three o’clock from S.E. to E.S.E. Towards S.E. by S. the
river makes a bend, and a village extends yonder on the right shore,
which brought to my recollection Bonn on the Rhine, as seen from
the so-called Obtuse Tower, although neither towers nor high
buildings are to be seen there. Close to us, on the left side, we
observe a large and long lake, retreating with the river in a parallel
direction for about two hours and a half. I had not previously
remarked it, owing to the reeds rising so high, for I had now no
servant in sufficiently good health to keep a look-out from the mast.
Judging from the green reeds, it appears to be connected with the
river. At half-past three o’clock we go N.N.E., and at half an hour’s
distance over the right shore, a little lake and a village are to be
seen. The boundary of the old shore, properly speaking, is not
visible from the deck, but a sailor tells me from the mast that trees,
three or four hours’ distant, are standing there, up to which all is
green. The Haba, or the old shore, runs at the left side of the river,
in the direction of the great lake, about one hour distant from us,
and approaches near to us, according to appearances, behind the
before-named large village, which may be called here a city.
We soon come to a gohr, or canal, apparently feeding the little
lake. The current along the shore itself is frequently more unequal in
strength than in the centre of the river, owing to such flowings off,
and on account of the great depth of three to five fathoms, which is
often found directly close to the margin of the new shore, against
which the mass of waters is thrown. But notwithstanding this striking
disadvantage, we prefer to remain close to the shore, where the
crew are obliged to work till they are half dead to gain ground only a
little. At five o’clock we come nearer to the great village. My Bonn,
with the green of its vinea Domini, and its old custom-house, is
turned here into high reeds; its university into tokuls concealed
behind them; and its houses into reed huts of various sorts. It was
only the position and the winding of the stream itself that could
awaken this dear remembrance, with a whole host of half-
extinguished pictures; and the more so because we had already
seen an Ethiopian Bonn, the bare name of which had excited my
imagination.
On all sides the cattle turn to the smoking pastoral city. I hear
and see that the village of the women is always separated from that
of the men; that the latter possess only the temporary huts, and the
former regular tokuls,—the last being only common to both sexes at
the rainy season. We pass slowly by, whilst I stand on the deck and
write. This Harim village looks, on the whole, very well: the tokuls,
indeed, are low, but well built, and, as I have remarked already, the
straw upon the roof is laid round in five or six layers, giving it the
same number of stories, without having a steep slope. The old
women were the first to gratify their curiosity: they dance and jump
before their houses, sing bold songs, and beat their breasts up and
down, so that it is horrible to see and hear them. Children and
maidens appear to be locked up from fear of the “Children of
Heaven;” for it was asserted that the white soldiers in the former
expedition were looked upon by the negroes of this country as
“Children of Heaven.” I scarcely believe that such a compliment was
paid to them, for I saw a black soldier pointing to two Egyptians as
having come from Heaven; whereupon the blacks put on a silly
laughing countenance, and went away, as much as to say, “Children
of Heaven ought to fly lightly, like birds, and not crawl heavily on the
earth, and draw ships.”
A natural pond was connected by a canal with the river, and
closed by a fishing weir of palisadoes. Lumps of earth lay piled up on
one another, like pyramids of cannon-balls. They take, perhaps, the
slime from the canal with their hands, to plaster round the walls of
their tokuls, and also to clean the canal. Even the old women here
were ash-grey; therefore it seems as if they make fires in their
tokuls, and their beds on the ashes.
The city of these Amazons, numbering forty-two tokuls in a line
along the river, was immediately followed, however, by the city, or a
village, of the men. These summer huts have partly the form of
tokuls, with only slightly elevated pointed roofs; partly they were
huts with a mere covering, as a protection against the weather, and
frequently so small that they could only be built for the young cattle.
The hills of ashes, the real places of rest for the night, were
surrounded with a wall of reeds on one side, to shelter them from
the wind. The huts might be here about two hundred in number;
near them on every side rose the smoke of small piles of dung: close
at hand, the stakes stood, to which the oxen were fastened in the
evening. The horned cattle, and even the little goats, go cheerfully
to the smoke, because they know they are protected there from
gnats.
The men here behave very quietly, and do not seem to have
known that they would meet us when driving home their cattle. As
they do not come to us, we go ashore to them. The sheikh of this
tribe visits us in quite a friendly manner; he is invested by us with a
red shirt, and with a gay-coloured pocket-handkerchief round his
head, as well as strings of beads round his neck. In vain Thibaut and
I gave ourselves the trouble of trying to learn, with the assistance of
our stupid interpreters, something from these Keks; for they appear
to be unwilling to mention names, as if evil might happen to the
person whom it concerns.
The village is called Min, Mim, Mièmn, ever according to the
different pronunciation of the people, and, as Selim Capitan
afterwards asserted, “Bakak.”
This nation of the Keks, or Kièks, appears, on the whole, to be
numerous, and has a great sheikh, or king, by the name of Ajol. His
city lies on the left side of the river, far from hence, near a stream,
and is called Gog. Polygamy prevails here, as generally on the White
Stream; only, however, the more opulent enjoy this privilege, for the
women are bought. I remarked here, for the first time, bodily
defects, which, like elephantiasis, are so very rare in the whole land
of Sudàn. One had hernia, and many suffered from diseases of the
eyes, and wanted medical assistance. Their eyes, indeed, were
nearly all suffused with red, as I had previously remarked; and it
seems that these people must suffer uncommonly in the rainy
season, when they lie, as it were, in the morass. The hair of some of
them, who wore it long, was of a reddish colour, having lost its
natural black hue by the ley of the ashes and water, and heat of the
sun; for we did not perceive this in the shorter hairs, and they did
not know how to explain the cause of this tinge. The cattle are
generally of a light colour, of moderate size, and have long
beautifully-twisted horns, some of which are turned backwards. The
bulls have large speckled humps, such as are seen in the
hieroglyphics; the cows, on the contrary, only a little elevation on the
shoulders. The small reed tokuls, with half-flat roofs, are neat, and
serve throughout the day for protection against the sun. I wandered
about here quite alone, without being molested or sent back by the
people, although the whole crew on board believed, and our blacks
agreed with them, that men and women live separate the greatest
part of the year, and that man durst not enter into such a Harìm-
village out of season. I must, however, differ in some measure with
respect to this assertion; for I saw in some little tokuls of the male
village, young women and children, crawling about upon the
extended skins on the ground.
MOUNT NERKONJIN, 22nd JANUARY, 1842.
A young woman was so enraptured at the sight of my glass

beads, that she wanted to sell me her child, which she carried in a
skin under her left arm, as if in a bag. I do not think that I am
mistaken with regard to this offer, although one ought not to be
confident that the daughter of a harmless nation like the Keks would
do so. Perhaps she was a prisoner, which might be the case here
generally, and that these women are watched by the men. It is
always possible too, that the men take their favourite wives with
them for comfort’s sake, and leave the others at home, or put them
in some kind of bodily restraint.
A very large and broad sürtuk caught my eye, and I was curious
to find out the species of wood of which it was built, but the bulls
standing close to each other there, pointed their horns at me. Two
natives sprang nimbly to them, in order to quiet them; whereupon I
went off as quickly as possible,—and the more so, because last year
a soldier had been gored to death. A village bull towered above all of
them; his high horns were adorned with two animals’ tails; he had
also ornaments around his neck. I was not able, however, to
examine these ornaments very closely, for he rushed too quickly into
the herd, that he might, like all the other beasts, stick his nose as
quickly as possible into the smoke. This is a ludicrous sight: every
beast appears to know exactly his heap, or rather his
neighbourhood, else an uncommon confusion would take place, for
they have their stakes quite close to one another. In the morning
this encampment, on which no straw is strewed, is carefully cleansed
of the dirt, which is thrown in small heaps near the stakes, and
kindled in the evening, shortly before the cows come home, where it
continues to glimmer till towards morning.
Though the natives had hitherto let me quietly walk about,
because the general attention was directed to the vessels, and the
distribution of beads, now I heard from the men on all sides a
peculiar buzzing sound, similar to the bleating of sheep. The sound
can only be denoted by “Eh;” it is a natural tone of disapprobation,
and was sufficiently intelligible to me. The men had concealed their
arrows and spears, for they were told that they must not come with
them. If the women go also freely among the men, without taking
notice of the nakedness of the latter, yet there appears in them a
certain innate degree of modesty, as I saw myself in the maidens,
who are quite naked, whilst the married women wear a leathern
apron. An aproned woman had crept out of a tokul with her child, to
see the other strangers at a distance, when a girl, with swelling
breasts, also hastily followed her out of the oval hole, and stood on
tip-toe to see better. Scarcely had the naked maid remarked me
close at hand, than she quickly seized a stiff piece of leather lying
there, and covered herself with it. Other girls, already a good height,
but still without breasts, were between the cows and goats, and
concerned themselves more about the young of these animals than
about us. I found also here, in the tokuls, large gourd-shells filled
with urine, which, as mentioned before, is said to supply the place of
salt.
Amongst other huts, I here saw two built of bamin stalks, twenty
feet high, placed conically upon the ground, joined together at the
top in such a manner that they formed a draft of air as well as a
chimney. It was quite cool inside, for the entrance also nearly
reached to the top, and formed a triangle. They offered us milk and
butter, but as both are seasoned with the water previously named,
instead of salt, the crew refused them with contempt. We got,
however, fresh milk, and I charged my servants, who laughed at the
Egyptian braggarts, to take butter with them: it left very little twang
when cooked, whilst the milk of the morning tasted of smoke, and of
that dirty mixture.
Richly provided with meat, we took advantage of the east wind
just freshening up, and sailed, after sunset, to S. by E., but this
lasted only a moment, and we went from S.E. to N., when we were
obliged to take to our oars; then to N.W. and S.E. A smoking
herdsman’s village was noticed to E. by S. as also just after our
setting out. Reckoning from the horizontal layers of smoke, the
country must have been tolerably populated, even at some distance
from the river, which is here about four hundred paces broad. The
smoke produced for the cattle has no unpleasant smell; on the
contrary, that from the burnt reeds, has the smell of our thick
yellowish fogs; and, if I am not mistaken, I have met with such a fog
in the Nubian deserts, or perhaps in Egypt. The hygrometer shewed
this afternoon, at four o’clock, 65°; and I hear that Arnaud has had
it in his hands, and has made himself master of it, in order to profit
by it alone.
4th January.—The vessels remained during the night towards
E.S.E. According to my usual custom, I breathed the fresh morning
air at the open window: but I flew from the room where gnats and
the besotted Feïzulla-Capitan had robbed me of my sleep, as soon as
day shewed itself through the red tinge of morning. I see at my right
hand a lake, and hear from the mast that the same extends on the
right to S. for half an hour, and is, from S.E. by E. to W., three-
quarters of an hour long; that another joins to it towards N., cut off
from the Nile by dry slime. We remarked also a third little lake, a
quarter of an hour distant, behind the before-named city. The green
grass ceases before us; on the right is noticed a wood behind the
lake, and on the left some trees of the right shore,—always a
friendly appearance to me in the landscape. We advance by the rope
at ten o’clock S.E. by E., and then on the right to S. At eleven o’clock
we move towards the left side of the river to gain better ground for
towing, although the east wind had become stronger, and we could
see before us the continuation of our course. The wind is now
always driving the vessels on the reeds, and the people tow only
with the greatest difficulty, the poles being continually used to
prevent us from running aground. At noon, to S. The south-east
wind blows so violently against us, that we hardly advance beyond
the lake, near which is a little village. We still see the herdsmen’s
city, at which we stayed yesterday. The lake, as is mostly the case
here, fills up the angle of the earth formed by the Nile in its present
circuit, and therefore cut off formerly by it in a straight line, and
perhaps is so now at high water. The main stream then makes good
its old right, on account of its greater fall, without tearing up from
their foundations the choked-up passes to the lakes; for these old
river-beds form, by means of that root-work of marsh plants, a
natural cofferdam, which is no more to be subdued.
To the east, we see on the right shore mists of smoke creeping
over the ground like Cain’s sacrifice, for they cannot rise out of the
vaporous atmosphere. There is also there a village, pushed back, as
it were, by the reeds struggling forward, and somewhat elevated
above the marsh region. The crew are very tired, and we halt above
the lake till three o’clock.
A small hamlet lies in our neighbourhood, and I see again cattle
dragged near to us. Now, at last, we shall have enough meat. Large
garlands of meat, cut in narrow strips, are passed already from one
rope to another, to be completely dried in the sun, according to the
usual custom in the Land of Sudàn. It is afterwards rubbed small on
the murhaka, and with the ground uèka, used for a favourite broth,
to be poured over the hard meal-pap (Asside), or over pancakes.
This abundance of meat must be followed by injurious consequences
even to these Saturnian stomachs, for the crew generally are not
accustomed to it.
I have again that lethargy, threatening, like the day before
yesterday, to turn to fever,—a thing that makes me the more uneasy,
because the Febris tertiana is not only very tenacious, but is also
here fatal. Last night I was delirious, fell asleep late, and awoke at
the moment of departure; the sun, just getting up, fell like an
enormous torch on my face, when I unwittingly threw back the cloak
with which I had covered it, on account of the gnats. At the noise of
the sailors and soldiers, I fancied that all was on fire, and thought
for a moment of the powder-room under me, without being able,
however, to rise.
At four o’clock we went E. by S., and I saw that the river wound
more southerly before us, so that we did not advance, and heard
that we must wait for the ships remaining behind, and lay to at the
left shore. I had the fever till about sunset, but not in a violent
degree. From my window I perceived, close to me, a large lake, over
which the setting sun hung like a ball of blood. I raised myself up
slowly on my legs, and really did not stand so weakly on them as I
had imagined when lying; but the perspiration was not by any
means subdued. I hoped, however, to recover this afterwards, and
had myself carried ashore. This setting foot upon land exercised a
peculiar influence, as after a tedious voyage. The main point in these
countries is not to lose courage, but to drag about one’s sickly body
so long as it can go; to stumble, fall, rise up again,—anything, only
not to remain lying in bed in fearful despair.
The dark margin of the Haba extended in a half circle between
the setting sun and the water, from N.W. to S.E., like a faithful
though somewhat distant attendant of the stream sunk down by his
Neptunian majesty. The lake, which runs parallel with the river, and
appears to have its greatest extension from S.S.E. to N.N.W., and is
only divided from it by a narrow dam, four feet and a half high. The
tree-islands in this lake, the foundation and the ground of which
were concealed by the water, increase the picturesque and
heartstirring impression by their dark shade and play of colours
contrasting with the lake, glowing as if with fire! The landscape
towards the west is very much confined by the semicircular margin
of wood around the wide bay. An endless number of morass-birds
swim or stand around on the shallow spots, and find here the richest
prey; therefore, comparatively few birds are seen on the shores of
the Nile, which is here called “Kiati,” which is only a deviation from
Kidi or Kiti, as it was hitherto called. It became dark about seven
o’clock, and we went on S.E. Shortly before this bend, there is on
the left a village;—and now once more a pastoral hamlet, near which
runs a gohr of little breadth to N.E., probably connected with the
lake seen yonder on the right shore.
We also notice a village wherein Icthyophagi may dwell, for we
perceive no smoke from herds near it. We cast anchor, according to
our custom, in the middle of the river, to be more secure from a
surprise of these numerous free negroes; for our sentinels, in spite
of the bastinado, creep into their cowls and sleep, that they may
hear and see nothing of the swarms of gnats. We are now the more
upon our guard, because we have heard from these Keks that a
nation dwelling up the Nile, behind the Elliàbs, and who are said to
exceed the Shilluks in population, declared, after the former
expedition, that they would rather die with their powerful king than
permit us to pass. This intelligence made a very sensible impression
upon the Turks and Franks. Suliman Kashef, on the contrary, wishes
only to see this heroic king at a distance, and looks, with a smile, at
his long gun. As I know his disposition, and must fear precipitate
violence on our side, I try to make him understand that that king, if
he is determined to die, may first send at us an arrow or a spear. If
they will be our enemies and take to force, well and good. Even
though our soldiers may shoot badly, yet fifty negroes must fall at
every volley, for the vessels are our bulwarks, and they will come
blindly to the attack.
Suliman Kashef also quoted passages from the Koràn. At these
quotations, by which the commonest Turk feels himself authorised to
aspire to be a sultan, there came to my remembrance the beautiful
admonitory discourses which the French left to the brutal people,
during their glorious presence in Egypt. These began with passages
from the Koràn, in the Arabic, Turkish, and Persian languages, and
also in the French, thus: “Au nom de Dieu, clément, miséricordieux,
et très saint maître du monde, il fait de sa propriété ce que lui plaît,
et dispense à son gré de la victoire.” Then, “que les armes ne
servent à rien contre la volonté de Dieu. Egyptiens, soumettez-vous
à ses décrets, obéïssez à ses commandemens, et reconnaissez que
le monde est sa propriété, et qu’il le donne à qui il lui plaît.” Or “tous
les biens viennent de Dieu; il accorde la victoire à qui il lui plaît, &c.”
They end generally in this manner, “Que le salut et la miséricorde
divine soient sur vous!” We laugh because they come out of the
mouth of a Frenchman, with whom, at that time the Lord God was
as good as deposed; but in the country itself we comprehend the
deep policy of these phrases. Wonder and astonishment seize the
traveller who recollects the Egyptian expedition, when he reads the
inscription of the conquering heroes on the island of Philæ.
CHAPTER X.
SHEIKH DIM. — CLUBS OF THE KEKS AND CAPS SIMILAR TO THOSE OF THE
ANCIENT EGYPTIAN PRIESTS. — RAPACITY OF THE CREW. — TRIBUTARY
LAKES. — HEIGHT OF THE SHORES. — THE TRIBE OF THE BUNDURIÀLS. —
DUSHÒÏL, THE KEK, ON BOARD SELÌM CAPITAN’S VESSEL. — HIS SIMPLICITY.
— TOBACCO PLANTATIONS. — THE GREAT SHEIKH OF THE BUNDURIÀLS. —
FISHING IMPLEMENTS OF THIS TRIBE. — THEIR TOKULS, AND GIGANTIC SIZE
OF THE MEN. — ANTELOPES OF THE ARIEL SPECIES. — APATHY OF THE
CREW, AND INDIFFERENCE AT THE LOSS OF THEIR COMPANIONS. —
PHILOSOPHY OF A NATIVE. — SINGULAR CONTRAST BETWEEN THE FEATURES
OF THE SHEIKHS AND THE OTHER NEGROES. — NATION OF THE BOHRS. —
THIBAUT’S BARTER. — REED-STRAW ON FIRE, AND DANGER TO THE VESSELS.
— FATALISM OF THE TURKS. — GREETING OF THE NATIVES: THEIR SONG OF
WELCOME.
5th January.—At sunrise we sail E.S.E., and see immediately, on

the right shore, a herdsman’s, or man’s village, to which a woman’s
village, with thirty-three regular tokuls, joins, and where I saw seven
sürtuks lying behind the houses. We wait again for cattle above the
village, and I remark among the crowd of people our dear and
faithful sheikh of Dim, or Dièm, who seems to wish to accompany us
through his kingdom: he is very easily recognised among the ash-
coloured men, even from a distance, by his red shirt. Not to offend
the good people, we went ashore again. The majority of the Keks
still wear their ivory rings round the upper part of the left arm, and
likewise have only one hole in their ear. They made their appearance
here without weapons; but brought, however, clubs of ebony,
decreasing in thickness towards the top and bottom, fluted, and
about two inches thick in the middle. In order to grasp them more
firmly, there was not only a thong of leather for the grip, but also a
ring of skin, or of the inside bark of a tree, woven around the
handle. I saw here a pair of felt caps, rising to the top in the form of
a bomb, and thick enough to ward off a blow from a club. This is the
second time that I have seen a covering for the head exactly similar
to the cap of the ancient Egyptian priests. These children of men
have, however, a dreadful and truly horrible appearance, for the
face, through the black patches of perspiration and the white crust
of ashes, is like black-veined marble; although the form of the body,
generally six feet high, and even of the head, notwithstanding the
mouth projects a little among the generality of them, is not at all
amiss; yet, perhaps, on the whole, it may be a little clownish.
At eight o’clock we advance with libàhn farther to E.; then the
Nile winds to the right, and we are, at nine o’clock, S.E. Here we see
on the right shore a gohr, that may be compared to a large
millbrook. The negroes seem to consider this gohr as a boundary
where they can see us once more and wish us farewell. Yet there is
only one who lays his hands crossways on his shoulders, bends his
body forward, and lets it fall upon his knees. This truly has a very
humble appearance, and may be an Ethiopian bow. We have already
lost the charm of novelty in the eyes of the people: they see that we
eat and drink like themselves, and, by the bye, rob and steal; that
everything suits us which is of great value amongst them, and that
they must content themselves with a few beads when once the
booty is in Turkish or Arabian hands. If we consider this nation, we
start the question, how is it possible that it could have remained
from eternity in this primitive grade of civilisation? From what
mountains have they descended? The surface of the earth here is
scarcely even now capable of receiving and supporting colonies of
such a nature; perhaps their earlier settlements were beyond the old
shores in the Gallas and Habas.
Whilst we come slowly up the river, the negroes remain standing
right and left on the shore; they do not sing and jump, and we
remark no astonishment in their faces. The next question which they
put to themselves may perhaps be, “What do these strangers want
here? What can they wish but our riches?” Let us ask the first best
Turk or Arab what are we doing here? He knows not; he does not
comprehend the aim of such an expedition, where there is no
robbery, no plunder, no kidnapping. Turks do not think that any
colonisation is possible, for their own country is already too
extensive for them, and will remain so, indeed, till a perfect
regeneration of it by conquering nations. Immeasurable tracts of
land lie here vacant and uncultivated; but only the negro, baked as
he is, can stand the heat of the sun. He must, however, sacrifice to
the climate the greatest number of his teeth; this alone shews the
diseases peculiar to the marsh regions.
It is surprising that I nowhere see any elephants’ tusks, though
said to be so common here. About half past ten o’clock, S.S.E. On
the right a lake, running tolerably even with the river, narrow at its
southern point, more than an hour long, and three-quarters of an
hour broad. The Haba, with its videttes of old shores behind, draws
nearer before us. The right shore is a vast semicircle, circumscribed
by isolated trees, with many green grass-plats, pools, ambaks, and a
kind of acacia, with yellow clusters of flowers, like the gold-rain of
the laburnum. To judge from the many pools, the river does not
appear yet to have receded entirely, although the nearest shore-land
is already burnt away, right and left. We sail half an hour, but the
northern wind is too faint, and we come to its assistance by towing.
The stream is about five hundred paces broad, and does not seem
here to receive any tributaries.
A number of birds of prey pursue our vessels, in order, by a bold
attack, to seize the meat strung on lines. We know, even at a
distance, when a village is deserted, because it is immediately taken
possession of by these legions of the air, and rummaged in all
corners, in a very impudent manner. The natives on both shores
have here directly at hand another free and worthy position. A long
village, on the right shore, was by way of a joke called Dennap (tail).
The first group consisted of thirty-five tokuls, on elevated ground;
we only saw there old women and two old men. Our sailors, who
were towing, immediately shot at the vultures whirling round over us
through the village—forced open the doors of the huts, made of
reeds or animal skins, and stole the hides lying there for beds, and
whatever else was near. My loud abuse and threats brought them,
however, into something like reason. This tokul group was followed
by a double and threefold row of tokuls, about one hundred and
twenty in number, on the high border of the river; therefore it had
the appearance of an artificial dam, but may perhaps have been
elevated gradually by the rudera of the tokuls themselves. A
herdsman’s village joined on to the tokuls, numbering only thirty-one
huts, and some square sheds, the flat reed-roofs of which were
covered with earth and ashes. Negroes sat under them to be
protected from the sun, and allowed us quietly to draw near, without
making “Fantasie,” as our men wished. We stop near the village till
three o’clock: its inhabitants appear mostly to have fled. We then
advance for a time libàhn, and halt again, without any object.
At five o’clock we again advance to the south, for the natives do
not shew themselves. On the left we notice one, and on the right
two, lakes. We see, from the mast, at the distance of a quarter of an
hour, a lake of an hour long, and half of that in breadth; and some
hundred paces at the side of the left shore, a lake, not broad, but,
judging from the green grass, about two hours’ long. Behind,
towards the west, another lake shews itself, on the margin of which
the Haba recedes about an hour and a half; and behind us also, on
the left shore, a third lake to N.W. In front, towards S.S.W., a lake,
behind which another, in S.S.W., in the obtuse angle formed by the
river there to the right shore; therefore, at one glance we observed
five lakes on the left shore, joining, very certainly, at high-water, and
taking up an enormous space. There is no tree to be seen on the left
to announce the far-distant right shore; yet a margin of wood shews
itself in the distance on the left from E.S.E. to W. The air appears to
be clearer, for I see the smoke, in many places, ascending straight
up. At sunset we have the lake at our side, which lies, at five o’clock,
S.S.W. of us, and behind it another strip of water flashes up in the
south. From S. we go again in a semicircle to E. and N.E., and
immediately again southward. We sail, indeed, since five o’clock, but
have made, deducting the water-course, which has gradually got up
again to a mile in rapidity, scarcely half a mile in the hour. At seven
o’clock, E.N.E., and at eight o’clock S. by E., and soon afterwards
from W.S.W. to S. and S.E. to E., from E. to S.W., E.S.E., and N.E.,
sometimes with the sails, sometimes libàhn, equally quick, for the
north wind is very slack. In the level extensive arch, S. by W. to
S.S.W., at last we halt at the corner, where the river winds to N.E. A
large lake twinkles here on the left shore. The river retains,
generally, a breadth of about five hundred paces; its depth is here
two fathoms and a half. This seldom amounts to more than three,
and was to-day, in one part, only two fathoms.
Nevertheless, the river always contains a large quantity of water,
for the shores, precipitous and deep, nearly fall away in a right
angle. It is surprising that we have not yet found a flint, or any other
stone, in the Nile sand. The Mountains of the Moon must therefore
be still far distant from us. The thermometer, at sunrise, 20°, at ten
o’clock 26°, at twelve o’clock 27°, and rose till three o’clock to 29°.
After sunset, 26°, a heat too great for me, as I was not well;
although I had borne, at Khartùm, on the shores of the Blue river, a
heat of 42° to 45° throughout the hot days; and was subsequently
to endure, in the city of Sennaar, for three days, at three o’clock in
the afternoon, 48° Reaumur.
6th January.—The Haba goes to the east, under the horizon, in
the position in which we cast anchor this morning to S.S.W. It
seems, therefore, that we shall approach again the firm line of the
left old shore, by surprising windings; for the right has been
unfaithful. Nothing is to be seen of it except the high bed of the
primitive river, or a valley watered by the stream, partly laid on dry
ground, over which the Nile flows, from time to time, with its waves,
or rolls here and there into it at its pleasure. We proceed with libàhn
around the corner mentioned, to N.N.E., but, after a short time, with
a sharp wind, to E.S.E., where the river is remarkably contracted. An
hour from the left shore is a large lake, wherein are fishermen; close
to us a large fish-pond. The stream has, by the choking up and
alteration of its bed, left behind numberless such fish-ponds, in a
greater or smaller degree. The Icthyophagi only need for the in and
out letting of the Nile water, to keep open the canals connected with
the stream, so as to have continually an abundance of fish. From
E.S.E. we go in a shallow bend again to S.E., where we spread sails.
Now, at eight o’clock, again in this circle, to S.W. by W., and we
came in this manner closer to the old wood, as I had previously
conjectured. The river appears really by this means to wish to keep
more to the left old shore; for even the right side of the reeds is
here generally higher than the left. It is clear, and the evidence of
the eye-sight teaches us, that the shores, in almost all places where
old or choked-up water-courses do not run into the land, are
remarkably higher than the surface of the earth immediately behind,
as is plainly perceived in the stream territory of the United Nile,
which has been cultivated for thousands of years. The latter
especially struck me when, on my return to Egypt, I met with newly
dug canals, which were yet without bridges, and their banks so
sloping, that I was often obliged to ride up towards the mountains or
along their channel. The bed of the canal was always lower up the
country, although it lay on an equal line with the mouth of the Nile.
This rise in the bed of the stream exactly explains here, as well as in
Egypt, the inundations. They form then, in connection with the
tropical rains, numberless sloughs, ponds, and lakes, which must
collect and completely evaporate in these long basins, were they not
artificially diverted by the natives for the purpose of fishing, through
incisions in the shore-dams, when the Nile falls.
Half-past eight o’clock. From S.W. by W. we go in the circle on to
S., E., N. to N.W. by W., where we lay-to at ten o’clock. It only
wanted 85° of a perfect circle. From this gyration, forwarding but
little our journey, we go in a bend to N., and then to E. A gentle
north wind sets in, called even by the crew, Hauer badlàhn (faint
wind). My good countryman, who ought to refresh me again, is
really extremely weak, and deserts us entirely in a quarter of an
hour. Suddenly the wind blows against us from the south; and it
would be an evil thing for our voyage if south winds should now set
in, although we must not expect constancy in the winds in these
equatorial regions of Central Africa, judging from our present
experience of them. Eleven o’clock, to S.E.; twelve o’clock, S.S.E. A
city with several tokuls seems to obstruct our road, and, as it were,
to invite us.
We stopped, therefore, in a south-easterly direction before three
o’clock, near the well-built village, which, at a distance, appears
larger than it is; it numbers thirty-five tokuls, and is named Papio,
and is the first village of a tribe calling themselves Bunduriàls. The
name of the sheikh who came to meet us at the shore is Wadshia-
Koï. On the right shore, up the country, the Tutui are said to dwell,
but no huts are to be seen there. These Bunduriàls speak the
language of the Keks,—a dialect closely allied to that of the Dinkas.
In their powerful form of body they are also similar to the Dinkas,
only better built; and their women smaller than the giant forms of
the Dinka women, with their angular shoulders. Almost all the
people here had a white feather in the black hair-bonnet on their
heads. The latitude is, according to Selim Capitan, 5° 11′.
The river, which for some days has decreased in depth, amounts
to two fathoms and a half, near the village of Papio, and, as I
ascertained myself, to only two higher up. This is truly a
considerable difference compared with the lower course of the river,
but there always remains still a large mass of water in the breadth of
two hundred to three hundred paces, near the precipitous falling-
away shores. The rapidity of the river remains, on an average, one
mile, yet less where the water is deeper. I have been since noon
with Suliman Kashef and Feïzulla, on board Selim Capitan’s vessel.
The latter has continually a sailor on the mast, and has counted
eight lakes from yesterday noon till to-day. At half-past five o’clock
libàhn to S.S.E., where a small lake is perceived on the left shore. A
little after sun-set we halt for a moment, because the men are
nearly worked to death with towing in the reeds, which are twice the
height of a man. The thermometer, shewing before sun-rise 24°, and
at noon 28°, had got up at three o’clock to 32°, and fell at sun-set
to 30°. We went very slowly with a gentle north wind to S. by W., to
N.E., and then right round to S.S.W. Selim Capitan is really very
attentive at his post, although his momentary activity arises partly
from our presence. I praise him, by way of encouragement, to
induce him to go on as far as we can. About half-past six o’clock, we
sailed with the wind blowing fresh S.S.W., and had three miles’
course, in a wide bend to S.E., till eight o’clock, and at half-past
eight S.W., where a small island lay on our right; then a short tract
S.E., and lastly E.
Selim-Capitan has a native on board, who is of the race of the
Keks, and whose home was at Bakàk, near the village of Dim. His
name is Dushóïl; he is a jolly old dog, with a half-blind eye. He
journeyed with the expedition last year, and seems to have a natural
talent for languages, for he managed to make himself understood
generally with our blacks. I am able, therefore, to learn something
from him. He calls the Nile “Kir,” and not Kiati, or Kiti; but I cannot
vouch for it that I have rightly caught his pronunciation, incredible as
this may appear. Water to drink, is “Piju;” good, “affiàt,” and “abàt;”
bad, “arrashd,” or “arràdsh” (spoken with a humming sound);
nothing, “liju;” to eat, “tshiàn;” mountain, “kur;” come, “Bà;” Hallo,
men, “Ajajà!” His countrymen do not appear to be idol worshippers,
and recognize a great God, who dwells much higher, or is like the
mast of the ship, which he always pointed at to express His
grandeur.
The name of the great Mek of the Keks is Kajòk: he does not
know where he dwells, or perhaps may not wish to say, as well as
many other things on which he was asked. It is probable that I was
right in my former assertion, that their king is called Ajol, and his
village Gòg, for he may connect both words in his indistinct
language. He treats his own name also in a similar manner, by
appending the word Dim, and then calls himself Dsholi-Dim. The
Keks, as also the Bunduriàls, take the iron for their spears and
arrows from the region of Arol, the mountain of which lies towards
the west, and cannot be seen here, owing to the trees. Another tribe
dwells there. From this place they fetch their copper for the few
earrings that they wear, and upon which they do not seem to lay any
particular value. I was glad that I was at his elbow for some time,
although the coarse jokes of the Turks, in which even Selim-
Capitan’s servants took part, annoyed me. He is a good fellow, and
is obliged now to do at Rome as the Romans do. He could not
pronounce C in the alphabet, but always said T, and swelled the tone
at every repetition, without being able to come nearer to the
pronunciation. He sang, screamed, and danced just as one wished:
meat dried in the sun was given him; but he soon said, laughing,
“Arrádsh,” because it agreed with his teeth as little as the dry biscuit
did. A pipe was brought him to smoke, but the crew had filled it at
the bottom with powder, which exploded; on account of this, he
would not smoke any more, and was afraid even of a lantern, when
one was brought close to him. Soon afterwards, he took the ashes
from all the pipes, and put them in his mouth with the burnt
tobacco. Hereupon I gave him some tobacco in his hand, which he
kneaded together into a quid, and took in his mouth. A roasted leg
of mutton was afterwards handed to him, and the cat immediately
approached. He fairly divided it with her, and took great pleasure in
this animal, because it could climb up the ropes. Then he was a long
time enticing two young goats, by whistling, and calling “Suk-suk-
suk,”—nature’s sounds, even used by us—and played with them as if
they were his children. One of his principal songs began with
“Abandejo,” and he managed to imitate the chorus, “Wai, wai,
Abandejo,” &c.
Suliman Kashef had played some coarse Turkish jokes on him; he
was offended for a moment, but he soon slid on his knees to him, in
order that the latter might spit on the back and palm of his hands.
He played the buffoon, because he had been once mad. Some time
since, they hung beads round him, and put on him a shirt reaching
to his stomach, and he had so raved about with joy, that he became
at last sleepy, went into the cabin, and lay down upon Selim
Capitan’s bed; but he was soon hunted out of that, and they made a
bed for him under a cannon, to keep him safe from the further
bantering of the crew. He is a commoner of nature, and so they all
appear to me to be, but far from being savages,—and less
barbarous, indeed, than many Europeans, who are clothed from
head to foot. He was very much delighted with an Arabic song; I
could see it by his face; now he comes nearer with more confidence,
claps his hands, and shouts “Abàt,” or bravo! He wanted to learn it,
and caught the tune rightly; but they laughed at him, and he
became quiet again. Selim Capitan and I tried to imitate the idiom of
his language; he thought he really understood something every now
and then, and wanted even to correct us.
I saw, the day before yesterday, and previously, some tobacco
plantations close by every tokul. I looked for this plant in vain to day
at the two villages; perhaps it was already gathered. At nine o’clock,
on the right, the village of Angort, or rather Awargot; which, as
usual, was divided into a male (or herdsmen’s) and female village.
Ten o’clock to the south; before the left shore an island,—course
three miles and a half. At eleven o’clock S.S.W., we approach
Arnaud’s vessel; he is on the point of furling sails, notwithstanding
the favourable east wind. Selim Capitan habitually of a somewhat
timorous nature, inquired of him whether he wishes to anchor here;
without understanding his answer, he was also about to follow his
example and halt, when I asked him whether he was commander or
not. We sail on, therefore, and Arnaud is obliged, nolens volens, to
follow. A little after midnight we cast anchor near the village of
Aujan, and stood to the South.
7th January.—In the morning we landed on the left shore, where
the great sheikh of the Bunduriàl nation presented himself as an old
friend, being already known by the preceding expedition. He was of
colossal figure, above six feet high, had a handsome aquiline nose,
and a truly expressive physiognomy: about thirty years of age;
naked, according to the custom of his ancestors. He was only
distinguished from the others by wearing unusually large ivory rings
on the upper part of the arm. His name is Biur. A red shirt and coral
beads having been presented to him, he went away to procure
meat, and to send messengers up the river to prepare a favourable
reception for us. Behind this village of Aujan a large lake extends
from N.N.W. to S.W., and a serpentine canal, some thirty feet in
width, before the village, pours into it. Several people were moving
on this long lake to catch fish: their implements were fish-baskets, of
a whole, or half form, or mere wicker-baskets, which they dipped
into the lake and quickly drew up again.
To judge from the ground inclining gently, as if in a flat dish, and
from those trees, forming the arch from N.N.W. to S.W., being the
forerunners of a thicker Haba, a very large lake must be filled here
at high water. The greatest part of the water is afterwards let off, for
the sake of fishing, through the before-named canal. An
immeasurable quantity of water, generally, is collected in the low
lands, according to all the appearances which I myself have found of
such ponds in my short excursions into the neighbourhood. These
always exercise a lasting effect on the lower height of the water of
the White Stream, by their nearly simultaneous draining off, whilst
they contribute mostly during the inundation to the sudden swelling
of the White Stream by their connection with it. The tokuls of this
village, which is called Auan or Auwan, are not badly built, but have
low walls; the point of the roof also is not high. The lower wall,
being of reeds, and plastered with Nile slime, is only three and a half
or four feet high. The door is square here instead of the usual oval
form; it is constructed of reeds, and before it are two stakes fixed in
the ground, supporting a cross stake. Almost all the tokuls have a
little porch before this door, which is covered by the roof being
extended over it. The outer door is therefore lower than the inner
one, and the inmates are compelled to crawl into the house.
Generally, on the White Nile, it is necessary to stoop very much to
enter the tokuls. The roof is indented according to the length of the
straw bound up in hoops, and to the height of the roof itself; it has
from five to eight separations. The point of the roof is covered, as I
before remarked, by a gourd-shell, opening at the top and bottom,
and forms a broad ring, in which the slender beams join.
Part of the people sat or stood there; only a few collected round
our vessels. Many of them carried a long reed, instead of the spear,
in their hands. They would not allow themselves to be measured,
and continued to avoid me. I gave my servants three reeds of six,
six and a half, and seven feet long, to stand near the natives, and by
this means I ascertained their height. The average amounted to
from six to seven Rhenish feet.[8] We ourselves were like pigmies
among these giants. I might stretch myself to the utmost, but I
could not come up to these men, though of the considerable height
of five feet, two inches, four lines. The village numbers only twenty-
eight to thirty tokuls, and lies along the shore to S.S.E. We sail away
at eight o’clock, and in five minutes find a herdsmen’s village on our
right side, and immediately afterwards another, near which the river
winds to E., and we advance with libàhn. It is a large pastoral
village, and appears to belong, with the preceding ones, to Aujan.
The few tokuls of Aujan must serve the herdsmen, in the rainy
season, as a place of refuge, for they lie tolerably high.
This morning, early, there were clouds in the sky, as is now
generally the case; but still it is very warm, and we had, shortly
before sunrise, 22° Reaumur. When I consider the endless labyrinths
of the White Stream, and the eternal slackening of the winds, I fear
that we shall never arrive at the sources of the White Nile. The
stream is, as it were, without a border in the rainy season, and
towing then is an impossibility, even if the south winds connected
with it should not be violently against us. Yet I cannot resist the
thought that it is not only possible to discover the sources, but also
to scale the mountains lying to the south, of which all these tribes
speak, and to pass over in some other stream territory to the
Western Ocean. These thoughts occupy my mind when I sit at night
before the cabin, and indulge in the reflection of such a bold
undertaking, and one that would not be depreciated by the scientific
world. My men are enraptured at such a proposal; but dare I confide
in their courage? Yes, for if I did not, I should have turned them off
long ago.
We remarked a group of trees at a long village situated on the
left side of the river, containing sixty-five to seventy tokuls; and near
it we go further east, the Haba before us, receding in S.S.W. I look
at the village closer, and find that the very diminutive huts near the
large tokuls, are not, as our men thought, for the children, but for
the young cattle, and that this village has many straw or reed huts
behind it for the pastoral men. Every thing is burnt down at our right
hand, and only on the left is the border of the Nile still festooned by
reeds and creepers; it is here not above three feet high. The
enormous plain, in which is distinguished, from the mast, three lakes
at the last point of the Haba to S.S.W., stood, therefore, entirely
under water, although we perceive now numerous cattle and a large
summer village in the centre. On the left also we see, from the mast,
a lake and a village, about half an hour from the right shore. The
large half-moon on the right has still green spots on every side,
defying the fire with their pools. The land (if I may use this
expression to distinguish it from the plain subject to the inundation,
the secondary shores of which have become secure by the stream
having fallen very much) is about three hours’ distant. The before-
mentioned group of trees stands isolated behind the left shore; the
latter is somewhat elevated; yet the old shore, said to approach
before us again, recedes far into the above-named higher tract of
land.
Ten o’clock. We have mastered the bend to S.W. by W., and sail
now with north wind to S. A sand-bank forms the point of this bend.
Yesterday afternoon, and previously, it occurred to me that here also
the right side of the river, in an easterly direction, is nearly always
marked by higher shores; but to-day this was very apparent, for the
difference amounts to four feet. This is more evident because the
reeds and grass are burnt away. Behind the above-mentioned group
of trees, near which we perceive a number of overgrown ant-hills, I
saw again the blue trees of the right shore, like the friendly
appearance of old acquaintances. For a long time nothing has
emerged on that side except from the elevated point of view on the
mast. It depends upon the changeable humour of the river whether
they come nearer to us or not. Between the dark blue margin of this
wood we perceive a long glimmering water-tract. Some ten minutes’
later to S.E., at our right hand, a herdsmen’s village. Again, on the
right, round to the S., up to W. In the interior of the country three
villages, an hour long; but at a distance between the Haba, which
appears to be very thick and woody, water is still visible, possibly in
connection with the lake. This is at half-past ten o’clock; four miles.
At eleven o’clock S.E.; on the right a pastoral village, on the left
another. The north wind has veered, and we go, about twelve
o’clock, libàhn, in E.S.E. The wind changes about two o’clock to our
advantage: we sail from E.S.E. to S. and W.S.W.
At three o’clock we halt in S.E. by S. At half-past three o’clock we
go S.S.E. A tokul city of one hundred and five dwellings is on the
left, upon an island of two hours and a half long, commencing
already when we were in S. On the left shore a lake about three
hours long extends to the distant Haba, connected with the river by
a narrow canal. Somewhat more behind we see two more lakes, and
at a little distance on the right another city. On the left shore and the
lake some tokuls, with flat arched roofs and round doors. E. and E.
by S., towards S.E., is a village of thirty tokuls, some paces from the
shore, by it a lake, and behind this the other lake, which I stated to
be a water-tract, still continues.
We go quickly, with four miles’ course in S.W. by W., but also
round a corner to E. We halt at half past five o’clock to N.N.E.,
where, on the right, there is a lake with a village. The before-named
lake, of about three hours long, on the left shore, extends still far
with the river, like a deserted bed of the stream, as we saw by the
green strips, and the numbers of white and light coloured birds, that
had encamped on its margin. If we consider somewhat more
accurately, as I have already remarked, the main direction of these
lakes, so far as the prospect from the vessel allows, we find that
they always form chords, diameters, and tangents of the elliptical
and circular windings of the present stream. On the right and left, a
number of elephants are quite close to the shore, without being
disturbed by us, and even the many light-brown antelopes remain
quietly standing, and gaze at us. They are of the ariel species, of
which also there are many in Taka; their flesh is very savoury.
We have done with sailing, and take refuge again in towing. The
above-named intersections of the curves formed by the river are
seen plainly on both sides. I had already thought that Suliman
Kashef could not withstand the sight of the ariels. We stop on the
right, at the shore just where the river winds from N.E. to N. The
extreme edge of the shore is broken off precipitately to a height of

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Cover design by Eileen Delson La Russo

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vi INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

2.1. Dana’s Typical Monthly Pay Statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

In the best of circumstances, military manpower policy is crafted

xii INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

These stories were excerpted from a long series of interviews con-

I found the local support and endorsement of commanders at

xiv INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

trative assistance of Hjordis Blanchard. Finally, Phyllis Gilmore

This book differs markedly from what many think of as a typical

Background of the Research

2 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

Why the Army?

A Word About Locations

4 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

across the entire Department of Defense or even the entire Army,

Selection and Description of Research Locations

Ft. Stewart, Georgia

itary appearance. In 1980, the 24th Infantry Division was designated

6 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

The residential neighborhoods of Hinesville are a combination of

Ft. Drum, New York

8 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

businesses at which military families can spend their money. The

4Jefferson County Web page (http://www.sunyjefferson.edu/jc/About/home.html).

In fact, with the exception of the characteristics of military hous-

Selection of a Unit at the Research Locations

10 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

incidents. However, interviews were not conﬁned to spouses from

they referred to one another. Hearing how spouses referred to the

Selecting and Interviewing Spouses

12 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

controlling their reproductive tendencies. In short, junior enlisted

Organization of This Book

14 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

Dana in many ways is the stereotypical junior enlisted wife. She

16 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

Relationship With Family

18 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES

around the 23rd of April, and he’s supposed to be back anywhere

[The trouble began when we moved into the townhouse.] We

2Leave and Earnings Statement (a paystub).

20 INVISIBLE WOMEN: JUNIOR ENLISTED ARMY WIVES