Egan, Elizabeth2014-09-152014-09-152014-04-28https://hdl.handle.net/1920/8829This thesis is a collection of short stories about military life, and the impacts of that lifestyle on the characters’ senses of themselves and of those they love. These are stories of struggle and loss, but also of courage and discovery. Over the course of this collection, marriages begin and marriages end; wars are fought on the battlefield and in the home, and also in the mind; and a cycle of waiting—marines who wait in garrison for the next deployment, wives who wait at home for their husbands’ return—fuels the ooh-rah culture of the Marine Corps. For better or for worse, these stories reveal the myriad ways in which military service seeps into the day-to-day lives of marines and their families.enMarinesMilitary spousesMilitary deploymentsMarriagesTattoosThesis