Abstract
Fighter Pilot's Daughter: Growing Up in the Sixties and the Cold War details author and Professor Mary Lawlor’s unconventional upbringing in Cold War America. Memories of her early life—as the daughter of a Marine Corps and then Army father—reveal the personal costs of tensions that once gripped the entire world, and illustrate the ways in which bold foreign policy decisions shaped an entire generation of Americans, defining not just the ways they were raised, but who they would ultimately become. As a kid on the move she was constantly in search of something to hold on to, a longing that led her toward rebellion, to college in Paris, and to the kind of self-discovery only possible in the late 1960s.
A personal narrative braided with scholarly, retrospective reflections as to what that narrative means, My Cold War zooms in on a little girl with a childhood full of instability, frustration and unanswered questions such that her struggles in growth, her struggles, her yearnings and eventual successes exemplify those of her entire generation.
From California to Georgia to Germany, Lawlor’s family was stationed in parts of the world that few are able to experience at so young an age, but being a child of military parents has never been easy. She neatly outlines the unique challenges an upbringing without roots presents someone struggling to come to terms with a world at war, and a home in constant turnover and turmoil. This book is for anyone seeking a finer awareness of the tolls that war takes not just on a nation, but on that nation’s sons and daughters, in whose hearts and minds deeper battles continue to rage long after the soldiers have come home.
Schlagworte
American Studies- Kapitel Ausklappen | EinklappenSeiten
- i–xii Preface i–xii
- 23–38 1 Learning to Fly 23–38
- 101–108 7 Trouble with the Army 101–108
- 149–152 12 Saint Brigit/Bardot 149–152
- 153–164 13 Back to the Swamps 153–164
- 177–186 15 Germany in the 1960s 177–186
- 215–224 19 New Constellations 215–224
- 225–230 20 An Immoveable Feast 225–230
- 239–246 22 Showdown with Frannie 239–246
- 247–258 23 May 1968 247–258
- 259–262 24 Showdown with Jack 259–262
- 263–274 25 Lost Days 263–274
- 275–280 26 Heidelberg Redux 275–280
- 309–318 Notes 309–318
- 319–322 Index 319–322
- 323–323 About the Author 323–323