ALIVE DAY

A harrowing account of a military spouse’s tragic journey.

With plainspoken, precise prose, Fugett narrates her own improbable journey alongside that of her childhood crush-turned-husband, Cleve: “Young, poor, we followed the breadcrumbs we found, and they led us to the Marine Corps.” As her own family fragmented, in Alabama, she reconnected with Cleve at age 20, startled by his transformation into a combat veteran: “The prospect of a second chance thrilled me. I believed in soulmates, and I couldn’t help but wonder if Cleve was mine.” They married impulsively (and, like many soldiers, from economic need). Cleve was grievously wounded by an IED three weeks into his second deployment. She notes that the titular day for today’s veterans marks “the day they almost died at war but survived.…I wondered what Cleve’s alive day meant for me.” Thus begins a grim odyssey, captured unsparingly, beginning with the amputation of Cleve’s lower leg following difficult surgeries to preserve it. Grueling stretches of rehabilitation prior to Cleve’s official medical retirement taught her that “the military relies on young spouses like me as cheap—sometimes free—labor.” Then, overprescribed opioids, a lack of therapeutic options, and bureaucratic torpor lengthened the odds for recovery: “It was easy to pretend that whatever was happening to Cleve was normal, because it seemed like everyone at Walter Reed was struggling with dependence on their medications.” Although her story concludes with a glimmer of hope, Cleve’s horrific wounding and subsequent mismanaged care clearly mirror the trials of many military families.

A sharp, moving memoir debut with unsettling implications about national service.