The Fighter Pilot's Wife

Offering an inside look at military family life spanning WWII through the Korean and Vietnam Wars, this memoir chronicles the heroism not only of those in combat but that of the wives and families at home as they live under the ever-present shadow of potential loss. Married at the age of 22 to a dashing young jet pilot, the young bride Gilberta embarked on what was for many years a global journey as she followed her husband all over the world while he pursued the career he loved. From their honeymoon in Las Vegas to an Ichibon sayonara and St. Gobain au revoir to the final assignment, civilian life, she stood by his side and raised their four children. In the process she learned to cope with the tragic death of young pilots and how the other wives and family members comforted the widows and helped them pack up their children and leave the familial embrace of the military. Throughout she strove to protect her own children from the fears of the unspoken . . . that their father, too, could perish. Reproductions of letters, photos, and newspaper clippings further enriches this moving account of the challenges faced by a military family in both wartime and peacetime, and how one woman's life and view of the world was affected by these experiences.

Gilberta Guth married an Air Force fighter pilot in 1953 and traveled around the world with him to his military postings and then into civilian life. She lives in Novato, California.