CNN reporter Ashley Fantz interviews Kathleen M. Rodgers, author of The Final Salute and Johnnie Come Lately, about US troops staying in Afghanistan past 2016 http://siteblog.kathleenmrodgers.com/?p=3808

Wife to Tom Rodgers, retired USAF fighter and American Airlines pilot, and mother to two sons, one of which was recently deployed to Afghanistan and returned safely (many have not), she has endured nearly four decades of military life. Kathleen Rodgers knows first-hand what wives and mothers go through. She shares her experiences via her works—The Final Salute is a fictional depiction of a military family’s time before and during the Gulf War. Many of the characters are based on people she and Tom knew, and she dedicates this book to the ones who have ‘flown west’. In Johnnie Come Lately, Rodgers’ protagonist, Johnnie Kitchen, is a woman who lost her father before she knew him, in Vietnam, and now struggles with the fact that her youngest son has joined the Army…and also the demons of bulimia, which haunt her weakest moments. Written from raw, deeply buried emotions, Rodgers knows what each one feels like.

So when you read the interview, read between the lines; the ones filled with sleepless nights, tear-stained pillowcases and Bibles held through countless prayer vigils.

Johnnie Come Lately  Published by Camel Press

The Final Salute Published by Deer Hawk Publications