Swords to Plowshares

At the January 18th From Combat Zone to the Homefront: Supporting Bay Area Veterans Return to Their Communities at St. Mary’s Cathedral Event Center, Master of Ceremonies Johnny Baskerville and Dave Talerico report that they were brought to tears by the compelling testimony of IVP Policy Advocate Mai-Ling Garcia.

Mai-Ling was a panelist along with Amy Fairweather, Tia Christopher and Ernesto Estrada. Johny Baskerville said a hush came across the audience after Mai-Ling’s testimony on her experience as the spouse of a Iraq deployed vet. Mai-Ling told of the stereotyping she and many of the other 500,000 young spouses have had to endure after abandoning everything for their deployed husband.

Mai-Ling will receive an honorable distinction on her degree at UC Berkley when her thesis titled: “The Managed Family: An Examination of the Function of Military Families with the Institution” is published, hopefully, in March. “It’s a sociological analysis of the way the family functions within the institution (as opposed to the family being an external entity),” says Mai-Ling.