THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, January 22, 1997 TAG: 9701210353
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, staff writer
LENGTH: 149 lines
They are time and again the new kids in town, dropped into new schools and neighborhoods with belongings crammed into cardboard.
They unpack, make a few friends, pick up the geography, get a feel for the local customs. But before long they're helping their parents stuff everything back into boxes and saying goodbye and climbing into the car, bound for somewhere else.
Military brats have followed their uniformed mothers and fathers from assignment to assignment, base to base, since the first Army outposts began to sprout from the American frontier.
Now four Washington state writers and editors, military brats themselves, are striving to give the children of the military something the peripatetic youngsters have always lacked: a sense of community. A hometown.
It comes in the form of a magazine - ``Nomad, the brat journal'' - that is written by and for the kids of the armed forces, and whose third issue is due at Hampton Roads exchanges later this month.
Slick and colorful, Nomad's first two issues were filled with the reminiscences of military brats-turned-stars, insider pieces on military towns, advice columns, testimonials on surmounting the challenges of a lifestyle built on constant change.
``When people ask where I'm from, I pretty much take a breath and say, ``America,' '' said Susan Cassidy, the magazine's editor and publisher. ``It's a matter of not having a keen sense of place, of not having a strong connection to any city, or any region.
``So many of the people who are in my circle had the same kind of life,'' she said. ``It does get to be pretty tough. By my fourth high school, I was pretty weary of it.''
The daughter of an Air Force general, Cassidy is all too familiar with the problems that accompany a military upbringing. Born in 1959 in Greenville, Miss., she spent her childhood in Florida, Nebraska, North Dakota and New Jersey, Washington state and California - as well as Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and D.C., in four different homes in Illinois and two each in Alabama and Arkansas.
``I do pretty well at the geography part of Trivial Pursuit,'' she said. ``When you're little, the effects are not that great. But when you're in high school and junior high, that begins to shift. The social whirl becomes more important to you. Relationships start to really matter to you.
``I was very proud of my parents, very proud of my father, but I was tired of moving. You're caught in the middle, not wanting to move, but wanting to be a good daughter or son.''
Cassidy - one of four children, two of whom are now involved in producing Nomad - bounced from base house to base house. The family's quarters got better as her father climbed to four-star rank, but their dilemma was not unlike that of enlisted families. Separations were painful. Starting over was awkward. Grandparents and other relatives, along with any sense of family history, resided far away.
``It's not all a sob story,'' she said. ``When you hate a place, you get to leave. You can count on it. You also get the benefit of getting to know where you don't want to live, where you do want to live, and where you'd like to try living.
``But I tell you, I feel like I gave up something when I gave up my father for a year, when he went to Vietnam. I think I made a contribution of some sort, and I think it'll help kids to recognize that contribution and make them feel good about it.''
Cassidy was editing a newsletter in western Washington when, in 1995, she and her brother Patrick began to toy with the notion of entering the publishing field. Their target audience was a no-brainer: They had stayed close to the military through their retired father, another brother was an Air Force pilot, and their sister Diane was a therapist handy with words.
``It led to a lot of research,'' she said. ``We needed to know whether the kids now faced the same sort of things we did, or that we now recognize we did, when we were military brats.
``We found they did. There might be 20 years between them and me, but they're going through a lot of the same stuff. And today there are some new challenges, too - they're not just sending fathers away, they're sending mothers away.
``Another challenge a lot of kids are facing is single-parent homes. I talk to some kids who, when their father or mother deploys, go next door to the neighbors, and if they're not doing that they're going to their grandparents.
``Then kids are being raised by a generation once removed, and there are challenges there.''
After incorporating in October 1995, the siblings and two cofounders spent much of the following year in research. They found no publication aimed at military kids.
A test issue followed. Anchored with a feature about military brat and ``L.A. Law'' star Blair Underwood, its pages offered a photo essay on teen fashion, an interview with Colin Powell's kids, an advice column by Diane Cassidy and entreaties from the publishers for reader submissions.
Released without advertising, the test Nomad wound up on the shelves of 350 military exchanges worldwide. Military brats bought up about half of them at $1.95 a copy.
``Considering we didn't even tell anyone we were doing it,'' Susan Cassidy said, ``we thought that was pretty good.''
In Hampton Roads, Nomad's second issue is on sale at all of the large Navy exchanges. Ten issues will appear in 1997, Cassidy said, with two months off so the staff can recharge its editorial batteries and catch up with changes to the magazine's mailing list.
As the magazine grows, the Cassidys hope to see an ever-greater chunk of its content written by its readers. ``They have the answers,'' Susan Cassidy said. ``They just have to share them with each other, and I really think that they listen more to each other than to one more adult telling them that it'll be fine, that it's one more adventure.
``We're not interested in creating a bleeding hearts club. We are interested in giving them a voice, and a sense of community that is not bound by state lines, or county lines or city lines, a community that remains intact no matter how many times they move or their friends move.
``Kids talk real freely about how upset they get when they're moving, but they don't talk so freely about the worries they have about losing a parent, or just missing them,'' she said. ``Their whole mode of life shifts with each deployment. So in addition to giving them a voice, we want to give them ideas on how they can change their lives.''
The magazine won't revolve solely around the military family's transience. ``We recognize that there are some people who don't move much,'' Cassidy said. ``But their lives are still marked by all this moving - their friends move, and they still face having to establish and re-establish relationships. So in one way or another, that part of the lifestyle affects us.''
Despite her upbringing in rarified flag country, Cassidy says she is committed to connecting with all military brats, whether the children of admirals or buck privates.
``It's not for NCOs' kids, or officers' kids,'' she said. ``We try to achieve a balance in that. We also try to get a balance in terms of branch of service, and a gender and ethnicity balance - because, quite frankly, the military has always led the nation in achieving that kind of balance.
``We feel the experience is so shared, no matter what your parent did or what rank, that we all have pretty much the same story.
Her other struggle might be tougher: to keep up with music, with fashions, with the Internet and the expressions her readers use in everyday conversation. ``We have to be cool, you know?'' she said. ``We can't just please the parents.''
Now 38, Cassidy says she still carries pieces of her military past. She has lived in Washington state for 11 years, by far the longest stretch she's spent anywhere.
Still, she's moved three times in that period, and figures she's only good for the place for so long.
``I've never lived in Montana,'' she said. ``You do come away from that upbringing with a bit of a gypsy outlook.'' MEMO: Subscription information is available in the issue of Nomad now on
sale in area Navy Exchanges. Would-be contributors to the magazine can
contact Cassidy at (206) 820-9951. ILLUSTRATION: Photos courtesy of Nomad magazine
[pages from the magazine...]
[Cover of the magazine]
Photos
The military brats who produce NOMAD, from left: Patrick Cassidy,
Nanct Chambers, Joanne Forbes and Susan Cassidy.
KEYWORDS: NOMAD MAGAZINE