We're Moving Where?: The Life of a Military Wife

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

In 1962, Dave Russell, an airman from Newfoundland, married Jeanette
Shetler from Cape Breton Island. That same year, during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, the author did not even know if he was in Canada. This
was her introduction to the uncertainties of military life.

Fortunately, the future held much togetherness. Two years later, she
joined Dave in the United States while he took a top-secret missile
course. From there they moved to North Bay, then to Moosonee, and
eventually to Holland, where for 10 years their two boys studied at an
international school, she worked as executive secretary to the
school’s director, and they all had some memorable holidays to Paris,
Spain, Italy, and Greece. When they left Europe for a posting in
Virginia, the two Maritimers came uncomfortably close to a violent
society but loved being beside the ocean. In 1990 they returned to North
Bay, where Jeanette opened a boutique and Dave joined the Air Force
Reserves.

In this chatty lowdown on the vagabond nature of a family on the
military trail, Russell displays a lively interest in all she sees and
an ability to ferret out interesting tidbits of information. She also
loves a good laugh and a good drink, which lead to some
“shenanigans” that she finds hilarious but that will make some
readers cringe. She can tell a story against herself, speak out loud and
clear when something offends her, yet seems blind to the fact that some
tales make her and her friends look insensitive and even stupid. This
does not necessarily detract from the book, however, since the reader
meets a real character who can irritate and charm in equal measure.

The cover design does not entice one to open the book, and the
black-and-white snapshots inside are too small to be of much interest.
What readers may remember best are Russell’s endearing affection for
the efficiency of the Canadian military in looking after its own and her
gratitude for the opportunities it gave her family to experience much
that they might never otherwise have known.