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| ISBN # 978-0-9748869-2-3 |
Between Duty and Devotion is the story of a fast track career military officer, whose marriage is
secretly on the rocks. As soldiers return from Iraq and Afghanistan even today, they find that
the pressures of a military deployment can be stressful to their
marriages. |
When a man joins the military, the
joke is, “If the Army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you
one.” By the time he reaches the rank of Lt. Colonel, he is told, “If you can’t
handle your wife, you can’t handle commanding troops.” |
While millions of military families
have strong marriages that survive the pressure of command, deployment
separations, and tension, and danger, some marriages, those that were weak to start with,
will not make the cut. |
But what choices does an officer
have if his marriage is disastrous? A messy divorce can end his career. A love
affair, if discovered, can bring disgrace and a court marshal. Staying married
and “playing the game” may bring promotion and prestige, but it also breeds
hypocrisy and perhaps, eventual hatred and violence. |
This novel is one of
loneliness and longing, family malice, infidelity, and betrayal. But the mystery
is for the reader to determine who really betrayed whom. It is also the tale of a
life-long, loyalty and devotion that nothing can tarnish. |
A gifted officer, Neil Sedgwick,
becomes exhausted and lonely after years of his wife’s rejection and tells her
he wants a quiet divorce so as not to destroy his Army career. Eventually, he
falls in love with a woman he sees as his life’s companion and naively believes
he can protect the woman he loves, his children, and his next promotion. When
his estranged wife threatens both his
career and his children’s custody, she declares she will “…pin on his general’s
stars, or be damned sure he never gets them.”
His most
painful dilemma comes when he learns that command of a military unit is not
necessarily command of his own life. Where can he turn when the choice is
between his duty to the military and his devotion to the woman he loves?
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