Author Author

by Bob MacKenzie

Deborah Harrison and Lucie Laliberté are a study in contrasts. Deborah, the university professor, is suited and professional, appearing more like one might expect a lawyer to appear. Lucie, the lawyer, while dressed up, is more casually dressed, more like a professor or somebody's mother. They are both bright and friendly, eager to talk about their book, No Life Like It.

We meet at the Ban Righ Centre just before a reception to announce the release of their book. There is an air of excitement in the building as we seek out a quiet office in which to talk.

No Life Like It, subtitled "Military Wives in Canada", has its beginnings more than six years ago, when Deborah first made contact with Lucie.

While posted with her husband at Penhold, Alberta, Lucie had formed the Organization of Spouses of Military Members (OSOMM). One of their goals was to get a dental plan for military personnel and their families. OSOMM got national media coverage when they protested a ban by the military on their activities as being too political.

"We had to rent an office in town because they wouldn't let us have a space on the base where we could meet," says Lucie". "When we started to go door to door with a petition for the dental plan, they told us this was too political and we would be arrested if we didn't stop."

"And meanwhile," adds Deborah, "they provide space on the base for a bunch of old soldiers to lobby for Ronald Reagan's Star Wars. And they say that's not political!"

In 1988, Deborah read an article in the Globe and Mail about political activity on Canadian military bases. Much of the article was based on the fact that OSOMM was suing the Department of Defence.

The issue, says Deborah, was "were military wives free to meet. It appeared they were not. The armed forces defines itself as apolitical, but it is political.

"In the article, I found the name of LEAF, the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund, as well as Lucie's name. So I called LEAF and got Lucie's number from them. I called her and we had a number of long, interesting interviews.

"Later, in 1990, I asked Lucie to talk to my "Women and the State" class at Brock University. She came and gave a very interesting lecture."

Deborah suggested to Lucie that they write a book about Canadian military wives. After that, they applied for and received a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada to facilitate their research.

According to Lucie, they brought to the task complementary skills. Deborah did "most of the writing" while Lucie did "most of the technical" or research tasks. Together over a period of two years, they conducted 115 interviews varying in length from one and a half to six hours. While most interviews were conducted in English, a proportion were conducted in French. Except for about three of the interviews, both authors were present. The interviews were conducted at bases all across Canada and in Lahr and Baden, Germany.

Their task was not made easier by the perception of many in the military that one does not wash one's dirty linen in public.

According to Deborah, "the military community is quite a closed community."

"The military wants to be perceived as on top of (abuse) issues," Lucie adds. "They put good policies in place to protect themselves."

She says the attitude has greatly improved at the top of the hierarchy, but "the attitude at the top is not filtered down to the bottom."

Even after authoring this book, Lucie says she still feels some guilt about having exposed certain things about military life.

"As a military wife, I have a certain defensive feeling about the lifestyle. If you talk about it outside, you're careful what you say or you are perceived as disloyal."

But she believes it is important that some facts be exposed, especially as regards familial abuse.

"Isolation is the great tool of the abuser, and the military life provides complete isolation. There are moves every two years, and there is isolation on the base.

"We were surprised how often the issue of child abuse and wife abuse came up in our interviews."

Deborah adds that, on the base, "everything has to appear perfect, pristine. Everything has to appear controlled. The rank system encourages secrecy."

"It's like a dysfunctional family," comments Lucie. "You do everything to protect the family itself."

"The military community is the total portable institution," according to Deborah. "It's cut off from the outside. Inside, you are totally dependent on the military community.

"The men have the same uniforms, the same jobs. The houses are all the same. Everything's the same."

In a very artificial way, the military community, according to Lucie, really is like a family. "The base C.O. is called The Old Man. Often, the officers when speaking of their staff will refer to them as The Kids. This is the terminology that is used. It's like a big family, but there's no rights in that family. Everything is a privilege. Privileges can always be revoked if you don't toe the line.

"Who has the responsibility for correcting the damage?"

Both women agree that the work wives do is essential to the operation of the military yet more often than not goes unrecognized.

Deborah says, "the unpaid work wives do is necessary to prop up the military organization. It is socially invisible work that keeps the military machine working. There is a clear conflict of interest between military needs and the wives' needs." She adds that many military wives, if a divorce occurs, may end up subsisting on social assistance.

"It's not so bad if the marriage holds together," says Lucie. "You see the vulnerability of the military wife when the marriage breaks down."

"Women in general do not have the power to regulate their own lives," adds Deborah. "It is not healthy simply to live vicariously through someone else. The military expects women to live as an extension of someone else.

"The military represents how society treats women in microcosm. The anger comes eventually from the fact that it is not natural.

"The military takes full advantage of the conservative, patriarchal (role of women). It expects that women will do nurturing and support work and services. Women are expected to do unpaid nurturing.

"Male spouses," she adds, "are not expected to pour tea and wear long gowns at social functions."

Growing more serious, Deborah says, "It is important to talk about the military and not just wives as victims. The military's purpose is the use of force as a way of correcting situations.

"How many sacrifices are made by so many people--especially women and children--to keep the military going?"

"Is it fair?" Lucie asks. "Whose responsibility is it? Who compensates the women and children for their sacrifices? How much is too much? Because they ask the man to lay down his life, can they ask everything of me?"