Helen Thorpe (Just Like Us) captures the lives of three women, who, for different reasons, decided to join the Indiana National Guard. Michelle was 18 and found her "circumstances dreary"; she drove a beat-up old car, drank excessively, smoked too much pot and was having trouble in her community-college classes. The National Guard would pay for her tuition and get her in better physical shape. Debbie ran a beauty salon and was soon to be grandmother, but she joined the Guard at the age of 34 to emulate her father, who had been a drill sergeant in the army. Desma grew up in and out of foster homes, was a mom at 17, and said she "joined the military on a dare."
What none of these women anticipated were the September 11 attacks, which eventually led to their deployment first to Afghanistan in 2004 and then to Iraq in 2007. Thorpe thoroughly details the lives of these three women at home, while in training and then on deployment. While on duty, they survived sexual harassment, loneliness, depression and the explosion of a roadside bomb, and they forged strong bonds with each other because of their circumstances. Once home and struggling with often-overwhelming choices and decisions in their daily lives, they turned to one another for support despite the miles that separated them. Thorpe's careful exposition of the life women face in the armed forces is highly enlightening and should be considered a must-read for anyone--particularly women--who thinks she might enlist. --Lee E. Cart, freelance writer and book reviewer