a cheap flight if you are trying to go. anything else? thank you so much. [applause] >> as it says up here a must read on sale now monopolists and mary would be happy to sign copies for you. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

and now "after words" on booktv. elaine lowry brye the mother of four military officers talks about what families go through during times of deployment. she discusses her book "be safe love mom" with patricia kime senior military -- writer for military times. >> host: welcome. i am here with elaine lowry brye to discuss her new book "be safe, love mom" a military mom's stories of courage, comfort and surviving life on the homefront. welcome to washington. >> guest: thank you so much and thank you so much are being here to talk with me about it. >> host: tell me a bit about your book. >> guest: i never intended to write a book. what happened was in 2001 my oldest son headed off to the naval academy and at that time there was a place where parents could communicate with each other and engage in just kind of

connect and so i began posting on that listserv. along came 9/11 and everything changed. my son had gone to peacetime navy and within a few short hours everything changed. so i began to write more. i would write about being encouraged and for us to remember our roots. ultimately i was asked to become a -- so that started a series of 14 years of advising encouraging and supporting naval parents. through that time i had two more children who decided to ultimately attend the naval academy. so as the years went by not only did i have children at the naval academy, now i have them on active duty. and so parents kept saying you need to write this all down in the book. you need to write this all down and as our life continued in its

twists and turns my husband after his airline declared bankruptcy and he lost his pension he ended up working for an airline in afghanistan. i followed him in top for a year in afghanistan so i have this unique perspective of being a mom who had had children deployed to afghanistan and now i was there in kabul at the same time our youngest son the rebel, decided to join the military not be the naval academy but the army rotc. now i have four children all serving. i had been in there were some and when i came back people kept saying you need to write this down. at first i thought i will just write it down for my family. so i did and apparent from the listserv said you need to do more than that with this and he contacted the publisher and the result is "be safe, love mom." >> host: you had three go to

the naval academy in and one goes to the university of north dakota and his army rotc. they are all serving in different branches of the service. how did that come about? guess that when you go to the naval academy you can select the navy or the marine corps in their limited number of activities. my daughter ended up cross commissioning to the air force primarily because she wanted to try and fly and she had a medical condition that precluded her from doing that in the navy. the air force had different standards. she had done an exchange at the air force academy. she was also interested in space so she was allowed to make them across commission. so it was a total fluke that we ended up with children in every branch. it was never intentional. but you know the kind of fits with each of their passions and what they wanted to do and the active duty military service. >> host: who do you feel your

audience is for this book? >> guest: my first audience is military moms. i say that i speak for the moms and dads. i get these e-mails from dad saying well what about us? i say well i know you care just as deeply about your children but my first audience is moms. they now that they are not alone, that they can be encouraged and inspired and we can share information ended my web site that is what i'm trying to do is build a community where moms can come and be supportive and find information. because we don't get family readiness briefings. we don't live on a base. we don't give that support -- get that support that comes from the traditional military. that's my first audience. my second audience is the greater community to say i want you to understand what this is like. i want you to realize that it's not the same as sending your children off to college.

there are a lot of differences, so i just want you to understand that there are people around you that are caring and heavy burden that may appear. it's what we do and we do it gladly because we love our country but it still is a heavy burden. so i have to audience is i hope. >> host: now you grew up in a military family. your father served in the army i believe and went to vietnam. you write a little bit about your experience as a military child with your father deploying. talk about that a bit. >> guest: i am the oldest of seven and i moved 17 times. i went to 12 different schools and my father was than they army corps. he met my mother when she was in the army as well so i joke about my first military duty was giving my mother and honorable to charge because in those days you could have a child and be a woman in the military.

my father's first tour in vietnam, he was an adviser and i was eight years old. i really didn't have a concept of what that meant except halfway through was when there was the coup, the military took over the government and we started sending in troops. so things change very rapidly from then on. it was very difficult. at a hear a lot of controversy now about should troops be thanked and i'm like yes troops need to be thanked. everyone needs to be thanked because i grew up were ahead to defend my father. even when i was in rotc in the late 70s on the campus of arizona state university i was harassed. i was cap called and i was spit at when i would wear my rotc uniform. i don't ever want to go back to those days when feeling like you needed to apologize and defend your parents because someone was calling you and that happened to

me. so now as i look at the way this current generation of troops are being valued, it's very heartwarming to me as a mother. i think it's a great thing but i had six younger brothers and sisters. some of them really struggled with the constant moving and it was a very difficult time. on the other hand there is no place where i feel more at home than on a base or a post. and there was a connection between our family that was so tight because no matter where we were we had each other. maybe not my dad but we had our siblings and our mom. i really treasure that. i treasure the people that i met because you don't have to waste time trying to fit in. everybody is ready to make a friend because we are also

transient. so that part of military life was really continues to be very special to me. >> host: i find it interesting that you grew up in that environment and married somebody who was in the air force buddy got out and then you move to a small town in ohio, a farm in ohio. as a military spouse myself the whole concept of actually living in one place for a long extended period of time to me is very frightening. so here you are going to raise your children in one place for their entire most of their childhoods. talk about that transition. >> guest: i thought that's what i wanted. i thought i wanted to know what it felt like to be able to have stuff pile up in my basement and not have to pack one box of my special things every time we moved. and there is a part of that that is very comforting and i know

who my mechanic is and i know whom i doctor is that i didn't travel all the time. i don't way when people drive by. when you live in a place where you don't expect to know anybody you are not looking at anybody's carpet when you've carpet when you live in small town america everybody knows everybody. but the joke is don't come to my house in the dark because i do miss moving and i do miss being in new places. so one of the ways i would cope with that is i would move furniture. i'm not talking about moving just the couch. i might turn the living room to the dining room and move the bedroom around. my husband to come home late at night and he wouldn't even know which room to go to. that's always a running joke that there are parts of it that are just wonderful and there are parts of it that i do feel like that dandelion that is a symbol for a brat. i'm ready to fly on and be in a

new environment. >> host: how did that experience of growing up on a farm in ohio influence your children to go into the service if it did, and tell me a little bit about what you thought when your first son talked about joining the navy. guests know one of the things we did we lived in an area that is not predominantly military at all. very few people in the military but we had my dad. we were very fortunate because my husband flew for an airline so we would travel to visit him a lot. they heard family stories. we would come to d.c. a lot. we had a family tradition to come to the memorial day concert every year. we did that probably for eight years and when the service songs would play they would stand up for dad so we made sure that

they knew their family legacy of service and this was something to be valued so they were exposed to that. at the same time my husband wanted them to learn how to work hard and be uncomfortable. he felt like i was preparation for life. if you can follow through and be responsible, work hard and endure discomfort there isn't a whole lot that you can't handle. they learn how to bale hay and how to feed the animals before they were allowed to be back, all these things so ultimately when eric spent his first summer at the naval academy one of the letters we got home was this is a lot easier than being at home bailing hay. so we thought, we succeeded to him prepared that we knew from the time he was a very little boy he wanted to be top gun. my brother-in-law was a navy recruiter and we would get boxes

of posters and airplane pictures. my husband was it was like wait a minute he's going into the air force. but he just had that dream and that vision and so as he got older we visited the academies. we looked at different options. and because he knew he wanted to be a military pilot. so when he was accepted to the naval academy i was so excited and proud of him because he was realizing the beginning of his dream. there was a lot more to happen before he would get his wings. and at the same time it wasn't until that very first day induction day, even though i had grown up in the military and i understood it and i respected as an institution that first day all of a sudden it hit me that

this was going to be totally different than any other military family experience that i had had up to that point. >> host: and you up in 2000 that point had been involved -- i know baerga serves and we have social media. have you been contacting naval academy parents up until that point or were you aware of this great big parents group that is out there? >> guest: back in the day there was no facebook at that point in time. we have a listserv and once your child had an appointment he could participate. so it was probably april and the kind of questions you asked were you know, what do they need to bring and what color tennis shoes today need, all that minutia that when you are a parent or especially a mom you feel like you are in control he could you are making sure they have everything they need. that's part of the reality of

once they hit that door there is nothing else that i can do that is going to prepare them anymore than i already have and now it's up to them. that was for me very difficult to close i wanted to be able to do everything that i needed to do for them to be successful but the apron strings were cut. i say they're not just cut, they are hacked with a machete and now it was up to him. he was going to sink or swim based on his passion and his ability to survive. and it was an immediate he's out of the nest moment. >> host: how much of a hands-on pair were you prior? would you describe yourself as a helicopter mom? >> guest: no. we did a lot of things to have

them be independent and to help them soar. so we didn't run interference for them when they had difficulties. it was like okay you signed up for this, you are not putting the team. you need to work it out. you need to show the coach we can do. anything that they were excited about are passionate about i was there for them. i was driving down. they were all involved in different sports. they did community theater. katrina decided when she was 13 she wanted to climb mt. everest. i found an expedition that she could earn money. she and my husband joined an expedition where 16 hiked to mt. everest for mt. everest everest or less at no cost to take the family to disneyland. she raised the money herself so i was that kind of supportive if that's what you want to do let's go for it but i did not

fight battles for them. i did not use my connections to help them improve their lot in life. my husband didn't coach so they could get a better spot on the team and that's the perception that one i think of a helicopter parent is trying to smooth the way instead of letting people fight their battle, because that's how a new and that's how i still know that they are okay. because i know they can fight these whatever obstacle comes in their path i know they have the internal skills to handle it. now do i sometimes feel like i am standing on the sidelines biting my fingernails and cheering them on? of course but i need to have confidence that they are prepared for what is in front of

them. so that was -- and my husband's goal was creating an environment where independent some hard work is going to pay off. sometimes it wasn't there. sometimes things happen where i really wanted to get more involved but i held myself back because that wasn't going to help them. so now what i tell naval academy parents is i say a helicopter parent, you create helicopter parent when you don't give people enough information. part of my goal is to give them information about what to expect expect. one i know what to expect then i can relax and ease off and i don't need to be hovering. i say the same thing to my grandchildren. if you don't want me hovering just give me some crumbs of information. i just need to know you're okay. if you tell me you are okay then i don't need to hover and

now it oils down to, sometimes it's once every two months especially when they are deployed. i don't expect to hear from them every day. i'm grateful for secondhand news from their spouses. but when i know that i know this is okay and then i back off. >> host: it's not so much a how-to parenting book but it was a how to navigate this new world and culture that is the military. you had a background in being in the military family. he probably encounter every day people that think it's completely a foreign country. talk about the unique culture that is the military family and how hard it is to convey to brand-new parents, people whose

kids just enlisted or went to the naval academy or west point how do you help them navigate this new world? >> guest: i did a series and we have a facebook page where i also write. i do a series for new naval academy parents but it's pretty much basic truth. for example, in the military rules are not made to be broke in. i used to teach in a junior high and high school environment and most of my students aren't used to that kind of environment where a rule means that their world. for example i grew up only walking on sidewalks and never walk in on the grass. that's just second nature to me. that was part of the military order and discipline so the first thing is to explain that concept of military order and discipline. where do you think it's a stupid rule are not or whether you want

to express your individuality or whatever there's a reason why we need conformity. there's a reason we need a chain of command and a reason why we need to follow that for good order and discipline. every military unit in the world has to have that basis. so explaining to parents doesn't matter if they think it's stupid, they still need to do what they say because they are modeling behavior that later on in a time of war or a difficult time they need to be able to count on people doing what they are supposed to do when they are told to do it. it's just the basic truth. people who didn't grow up in the military many times don't have the confidence in the institution that i had growing up in it because as you get older and you look back you see a method and all the madness. why should people be trained to behave this way because there

are times when it's critical that they need to follow procedures. i go back to my son now flies in date -- and my husband flies a 767. they have procedures that they have to follow in the event of an emergency to the letter in order to keep everyone on board and keep themselves safe. it's the same thing. so many things they do in the military are with nuclear weapons or they have men and women in their community that they are responsible for. there's a reason why you need to follow the rules and follow procedures. and so it begins with that. the second part especially specially when they are in a training environment is what are they going to be doing three years, four years, 10 years from now? of fair trading to be officers they will be responsible for people potentially life or death situations. it's important for them to be pushed to know that they can

perform even the most difficult circumstances. so that's why they screen. that's why they do these things that seem ridiculous because they need to know that they can be unemotional in a time when most people would meltdown. so as we go through these different phases then we get to the heart is one of all which is you have absolutely no control over anything. you can counsel, you can give advice but if they have a medical problem the military is going to take care of them. if they have a leadership problem, they need to go through the chain of command to take care of the situation they are dealing with. and that is probably the most difficult part of all of it is you can't call the counselor. >> host: i would see that as

wow my job is over. just go well, you don't. i do now. in the very beginning the first time i went through it it was a shock. now i am relieved i don't have that to worry about. i have enough other things i need to worry about that for many new parents or when their son or daughter hits a bump in the road and they get a phonecall or a text message that says this guy is doing this or whatever, it's just like when they went on a bus the first time. what do you want to do? he wants to get in there and fix fix it then you can't anymore. you can't because it's not appropriate and it's what they need to take care of. and so that is one of the hardest parts. i think it also coincides with a lot of women in their nest is

starting to empty and we start to redefine who we are. our role as mother changes. i think parenting adults because you still apparent. your parents are still parenting you if they are still alive, it's really hard. there is no way to expect when you're expecting an parenting an adult child so that's where mother-in-law jokes come from. how do we navigate this new world especially when we have children that are independent warriors. but they will always be my child child. not maternally but biologically. >> host: let's talk about the experience of having your troops, your children go into combat zones, war zones, a military that is at war. you know, in the beginning there

were discussions about obviously there are programs for families. there are programs for spouses. there are seminars. there are family readiness programs. there are whole unit programs to help spouses but parents are sort of left out of that close-knit community. what was that like for you and what did you do to sort of build your own community with other parents? >> guest: there is something -- the first time that one of them went to a dangerous place, i felt like i was swimming underwater for a good hearted that time. partly because i had been there before.

i had my dad that i had experienced as a child so was kind of like a déjà vu experience for me. i don't sleep well when i have a child in that circumstance. i wake up in the middle of the night. i will have bad dreams and so i decided very quickly that instead of responding to that i needed to be proactive to help manage the way that i felt. i knew i had four of them and i knew i was going to be doing this. so i have a deep personal faith that helped me a lot but i also learned that it was really good for me to be busy and to be busy doing something different. each deployment i had some kind of a project. one time i logged as many miles as it would take to get to where he was deployed them back. >> host: do you mean writing why is? >> guest: we would be -- it

would be very loosely described as writing. i did complete the marine corps marathon in 2003. it was seven hours, four minutes and 66 seconds. let's say there were no drinks no oranges and very people left at the finish line when i crossed but that is one example of a challenge that i used to help thyself manage the stress of having a child deployed and i also started to knit. i actually started to knit when my youngest was playing football football. i didn't want to be that parent on the sidelines screaming at the coach. i realized that my hands were busy i could keep my mouth shut. now what i do is i use it as a meditation replacing nervous energy and then i tried to actively pray for each of my

kids. some of the other things that i do i planted a blue and gold garden. i had gotten outside and i know it sounds kind of silly but i really try and take care of myself. i give myself her mission to take a 20 minute nap or to understand that really i am walking around with an extra weight. i call it my mom backpack and it is there because the second something happens i hear something on the tv news about afghanistan or i hear something about an aviation crash. i am on red alert because that might be one of my kids. and it has been. some of my kids dearest friends so as those lists built as they deploy again the backpack gets heavier. but finding connections with

other military parent to get it, having that person that i could call at 2:00 in the morning and say i just had the worst dream. my husband is very calm. my husband and he is a great weight for me but he doesn't worry about anything. sometimes just being able to talk to another mom when we are both kind of like you know is so helpful. and that's one of the reasons why i really wanted to reach out to other parents because we don't have -- do we need to be connected because we find support in it. just like my daughter-in-law and my son-in-law when they are on base or on post they have that unit already there. they have the family readiness briefings. like you said we don't have that that. so how can you build that network and find that support

because i'm just as worried as the spouses. >> host: been you were young your mom sent you -- you into an outward bound program when your dad was deployed. would your parents have described you as a warrior? >> guest: i don't think is a warrior. i was just very responsible. i carried a huge weight and i still do, a huge weight of responsibility in my family. my sister was born a year and a week after i wasn't i was already helping her in helping my mom. so i think she knew and i would not at that time i would never admit that i was worried about my dad ever. in fact writing this book in some ways has been really hard. we don't talk about how hard things are. we just up. that's my family.

but i think she knew i needed a break and i needed to do something that would give me a way to define myself as a young adult. it was a great thing that i did it. >> host: out of the four branches that your children serve in destiny of them stand out as being more accommodating to parents are doing more for parents especially during deployment timed? obviously when people are in garrison there doesn't tend to be a lot of communication. there's not a need for it but in the pre-deployment workouts that you talk about them while they are gone india v. service service is? >> guest: i still have a bachelor so when my first son was a bachelor he turned my name and so i at least got the

bulletins. but really nothing. everything depends on for the ones that are married, but they can pay to me and that's why i tell my fellow moms, be nice to your daughter in laws. totally agree that they should be the first in line to get information and they should be the one that gets most of the communication. that is how it needs to be. like i said i'm grateful for what they passed along to me especially when they are in situations where they don't have the chance to communicate to multiple people which happens. >> host: there are some interesting wisdom that you pass on in this book and i pick up on one that is not on your list of tips but your husband and you you go visit beforehand well

before they are on deployment. i gather when there is the homecoming you probably wait a few days and then go see them afterwards. that space is so vital to spouses but many parents don't. where do your tips come from and is the just experience that you have learned this? >> guest: its experience and communicating with other military parents. it's growing up. i remember what it felt like when my dad left and i was not driving and he came home and when i went to get in the car he just about had a heart attack. there are so many changes in so many things that happen in six months or nine months that changes your family dynamics. it's like a plant that has to be cultivated and being gone really

hurts the plants. so when they come home you need to have time or you can just kind of regroup. and i guess for me my husband went to afghanistan in 2008 and was there for almost four years and for two years i was at home and he was only coming home every six months. so i had a fresh experience at how that feels and how hard that is. when i was in afghanistan trying to maintain communication and relationships with just my immediate family it was so exhausting. so i have maybe a higher level of appreciation for how precious that time as. you know while i love to come to homecoming they need to invite me. i will never just go because that is a precious family time. that's the nuclear family time. i appreciate the fact that we

are no longer in that nuclear family. a lot of moms, that's hard. like i said but i think especially in my situation it's the best because i want their marriages and their families to thrive despite the challenges that comes with being a military family. >> host: now you are a teacher and you decided at some point to go to kabul and teach. walk me through that thought process and what inspired you to do it or you you do have a chapter that you mention in the book. >> guest: asthma i said my husband lost his pension and they raise the age for pilots to 65 that he had to retire. there were 2800 private that

ended up being left at the curb. the only place that they could go would be overseas. he ultimately took a job with an afghan airline and decided we decided that would be something something -- he was very excited about it because they were building it to international standards and give her on -- flown in vietnam. it was the perfect end to his career. i went to visit him. it was the first summer for all the children launched and i would to visit him. it was the summer of 2009 and we were taken on a tour within the city but also out in the countryside. by that point more and more of my children's friends were deployed to afghanistan and it was not a good time.

but while i was there i felt drawn in to the people. the afghan people are some of the most hospitable people on the planet are you i can remember the day. we were driving in the countryside where they had that terrible attack last year and there were little small children on the side of the road again. i just looked at this little guy and there was nothing i could give him. i just thought maybe if i could be a teacher, maybe if i could come and teach because what is going to change is going to be education. that is the key to change in a country as people become more educated area it seemed like a crazy idea but then as i came home more and more just gripped me. i discovered there was a school

and the purpose of the school was to teach english to afghan students so they could go want to go to europe or the united states and go to college and come back to afghanistan. as luck would have it they needed in anatomy and of our mental science teacher which i happen to be able to teach and i ended up securing a position. it meant giving up my tenured teacher position and that meant being at 55 years old totally doing something radical. i just really felt called to do it. so i found myself in a headscarf and my toes covered and off i went to afghanistan. >> host: and you weren't able to live with your husband. casco know and i was hoping to see a more obviously and as luck would have it i saw him once a

month the whole time. he was flying between to buy and frankfurt and i know it sounds ridiculous but the airport was eight miles from the school. the school was in the western part of kabul and airport is over here. to get from here to hear you had to drive through the downtown area of kabul which is very dangerous. many times security concerns were that i couldn't leave or it would take three hours for him to navigate. he only had a 12 hour layover so it really literally was he was just over there but i couldn't see him. so that was very difficult. i call it my deployment year. i'm not saying i was deployed but for me it felt like a fraction of what it must feel like to be away from home to be

away from anybody you know to be in a place with no central heat, very little hot water and it was a rough year. they were bad things that happened, really bad things. >> host: you obviously were inspired to help children over there and teach children but earlier you said you also love to have information. in the book part of your afghanistan stand was getting some information knowing what was going on. how do u.s. a parent if you can't run off to afghanistan, how do you get that information? >> guest: well, and i wouldn't recommend running off to

afghanistan at this time either. it's a different place even from when i was there. i think reading finding books about that particular region. so many of us have sons and daughters who are going to africa and most of us i don't know that much about africa and the dynamics. i know a lot more about the middle east. read about some of the history of what is gone on. look it up in the grout with this physical geography is. the number of people that talk to me about the sandbox kandahar is in the sandbox but kabul is much like denver. try and learn about it but not from the spin that you get on the news kind of a show. investigate and learn about the history so you can understand

and then the next piece is learned about the people. most people in afghanistan are not taliban. a lot of people just care about their families and that's true in afghanistan when we went to bangladesh. the same thing, most moms in the world want their children to have a better life and that's our humanity. and so that's what i recommend, become an educated parent and understand where your children are. our boys have been in asia. i never knew very much about oken abbas and now i know a lot more because i make myself a student of where they are. this got interesting. you mention in the book that you went to bangladesh. >> guest: solo many stories.

>> host: what did you do over there? >> guest: my husband transferred in august of 2011. he transferred to an airline in bangladesh so we went there. for me, there are things as a woman in afghanistan. there were cultural prescriptions. i couldn't walk out by myself. i always had to be with a man and of course even with the security concerns i had very little flexibility but in bangladesh i could walk the streets of bangladesh which was like heaven to me. people were like oh my -- are you kidding me? we just met so many wonderful friendly people. we were very sad to leave bangladesh actually better kids were like okay, it's time for you to come home. we are having grandkids.

and i never thought i would do any of these things. when we have a farm in ohio and we were going to retire to arizona where we met we were going to be like normal people. >> host: speaking of not knowing what you're going to do and what's going to happen in your life you sent a christmas card one year to the obama's. tell us what happened after that. casco because i care so much about military families, because not just my own children. as i watch parents make that adjustment and as i watch our young sons and daughters get married and start having babies, i know how it feels to be struggling to hold down the homefront if you are a young wife. i worry about my grandchildren.

so i was always on the radar of for anybody who is doing anything to support military families. i started following forces. what a great idea. this is not political. this is bringing together everybody who can do their part whether its businesses whether its universities and health care, doing research on brain trauma. we need to be able to support all these young men and women who have gone to serve and their families. what a great idea. my daughter-in-law is a nurse. my mom had to get a new teaching license every place we were stationed and had to take arizona history in virginia history. so i just thought this is phenomenal. i'm just going to write a thank you note and send a christmas card. so i did and that was actually when we are in bangladesh bangladesh. i had come home for christmas

and i sent my christmas cards and then i went back to bangladesh for two months. i got home and i had this huge stack of mail. it was the height of the political campaigns. here was this clicker feed them below. i thought wow there really doing some pretty fancy political campaign literature. i almost didn't open it. then when i opened it i was flabbergasted. i couldn't figure out why it would get an invitation to a state dinner at the white house. so the next morning it was a monday i called the number and i said i have a question. they go yeah you are invited. i said does this have anything to do with a christmas card? everyone in the white house is read your card. i'm like what did i say? i was just floored.

i called my husband said he was in bangladesh and i said you are going to have to come home. he said are you all right? i said really there's really an invitation here. we got him home and what do i wear? i went to the mall and tried on every formal dress they had. i had a whole chorus of sales girls with me. she's going to the white house. i thought this is crazy. all of a sudden the day before the event i turned to my husband and i said we have been so busy thinking about what do we have to wear, who are we going to talk to? we don't know these people. it turned out when we got there the first person that we saw was the former commandant of the naval academy when our boys were there. people were just so lovely. >> host: and that's general john allen? >> guest: yeah and senator lugar and his wife kind of adopted us. people were just great.

we were prepared to go because we are going to sit in the back of the back of the corners of the kataeb pictures pictures of all these important people. that is when we went to through the receiving line and mrs. obama said by the way you are sitting with us tonight. who does that? we are just military parents. we have a farm. we were just blown away. and we had a lovely night. >> host: did you pick the purple dress? thank you wear purple dress? >> guest: i were purple dress that night we had. >> host: explained to the viewers what that means. >> guest: purple is the color of joint forces and when our daughter went into the air force the commandant at that time he was then a captain but now he's an admiral. he told me when you are the

purple mom you are the joint forces mom. so i ended up taking a purple dress and then later on when i was asked to introduce the first lady i got up wearing a purple dress, one that i already had in my closet that just happened to be purple. when i do signings i sign with a purple pen because i have four children, four branches but even the bigger idea that we all need to be a joint force to support our military families. they stand every day against enemies we know in enemies we don't know. so purple is right up there on my list of favorite colors. >> host: so you did go to the state dinner. did you get involved with joint forces after that or how did you follow because you introduced the first lady at the democratic national convention in 2012.

how did that come about? >> guest: you know what i have no idea. i went back to doing my work with parents and i had the opportunity to meet with the head of the forces where they talked about the major initiatives one of which is women veterans in homelessness with women veterans and the other is the issue about ptsd. i've started to get very involved with learning more about ptsd because now classmates and friends of my sons were starting to exhibit symptoms. what do you do when a mom calls you and says my son has ptsd and doesn't want anything to do with me which is typically a first-line isolation from people that you love. but life is going on. life had gone back to normal and it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. i was -- it was my cinderella story and i just kept on doing

what i did. actually when i got a call i thought it was ford -- because they said if you wanted to do a tour and i knew i had a son coming up so i asked if i could get tickets for a white house tour. that is what i thought it was about. then ultimately when they asked me to do that the first thing that happened was my husband said you know they have opera. they could have anybody they wanted. it was obviously overwhelming. who, once again does that? but i wanted to be able to put a personal story with the extended military community and for people to think about the fact that we are out here and whether

we are moms or wives or husbands or children we sacrifice every day. so i decided to say yes. that was the whole other experience. i just couldn't help think i wonder what my dad would be saying. i pictured him watching from heaven. i hope i'm doing okay. >> host: you talk about ptsd and tbi and you would get calls and questions. how have you approach that and what have you done to learn about those topics and to be a source of advice for other moms, other dads and how prevalent do you see the issue being? >> guest: being in kabul for that year there were things that

happened when i was there that year that were very difficult. i watched the staff that i worked with there many of whom are suffering from delayed ptsd. one of the things i learned from joining forces is sometimes it can be up to seven years after dramatic event and there was one circumstance where my husband -- husbands lay over hotel was attacked and i was on the phone with the flight attendants telling them what to do. he was coordinating the rescue. this all sounds like a movie. like i said i feel like it's not even my life sometimes but for them to feel safe to come out. we went through a dramatic event event, an event where you talk through it. so that triggered my interest from the beginning. then as more and more moms are

starting to be concerned as my children are getting concerned about people that they know i started to do what i like to do where he started to research and learn more. as an educator i'm very fascinated about the brain. i took a course in science and education. the brain is constantly rewiring and constantly changing. so my counsel to parents is to point them to certain organizations especially anything about suicide. for grief counseling and now i have the opportunity to go to the institute of health and the university of texas where they are doing a lot of research and my big push is we need as much funding as we can. this is our last frontier. the more we can understand about understanding the brain not only can we help those suffering from

ptsd or tbi but mental health, learning problems. it's just an enormous opportunity. almost like going to the moon. i think so much of what we are doing now is we are reacting to behaviors and we need to really focus on that holistic approach. what can we do to help find the area that has been damaged and fixfix itfix it.i am really hoping we can take great strides in that. >> host: speaking of injuries wounded warriors and tbi there's a whole subset of parents really the caregivers. it's also spouses and sometimes friends but a lot of times and mom had sent off her 18-year-old child who has come back injured and they are going to be

caregivers for a long time. have you spoken with those parents and what programs are there that are available for them? >> guest: of the book isn't just my voice. there are 25 other military mom voices in one of the voices is a mom who is carrying for her tbi her son who has tbi. she quit her job and moved to washington d.c. when he was at bethesda. and now what next? we have a million caregivers and fully one third of those are parents and many of them are coming from areas where they haven't had the benefit of a military background to understand what services are available to them and their whole lives have changed because they now are taking care of these terribly wounded children. ..