Date of Award

1-1-2011

Document Type

Campus Access Thesis

Department

English Language and Literatures

Sub-Department

Creative Writing

First Advisor

James Barilla

Abstract

Military kids often get lost, overlooked, and shuffled from one location to the next while their parents are doing the high-pressure work of national defense--but in the meantime, these kids get a world-wide education and back-stage passes to significant world events. Additionally, military children are part of a larger group of 'third culture kids'--people who grow up in two or more cultures, and so assimilate their own personal culture out of the many in which they've lived. As our global community moves toward increasing diversity and interconnected relationships, current third culture kids serve as what education professor Dr. Ted Ward calls 'the prototype citizens of the future' in a globalized world.

Military children thus have significant perspectives on historical events and contemporary politics, but partly because they're so used to blending in, they haven't been known to speak up. In this project, I have invited adult military kids to share stories from their international childhoods that express the pride, sorrow, and ambivalence inherent in a military childhood, and they simultaneously illuminate parts of history that often go unseen.

The material in this manuscript comes from a combination of personal interviews, memoir, and secondary research into news reports contemporary to each story. The resulting stories, I hope, reveal fascinating and refreshingly nuanced views of U.S. and world history, international relations, and the individual experiences that affect global events.

Rights

© 2011, Heidi Gabrielle Nobles

Download

Share

COinS