Interview: Bonnie Bartel LatinoFreelance journalist and Atmore, Alabama native Bonnie L. Latino has been a friend to Gulf Shores Travel Guide since it went live on the net early this year. When I was about ten-years old, I gathered gossip in my Atmore neighborhood, went home and one-finger typed a page I called “Neighborhood News.” Didn’t have a copier; didn’t know about carbon so I typed ten identical copies, then sold it door-to-door for a dime per issue. When I was about fourteen, my best friend and I wrote a column for the local paper. They paid us a nickel per column inch. We always wrote a lot because we had to split the nickel! We also had a weekly program on WATM-radio for four or five years. One of the DJs who worked the boards for our show was a young, very handsome John Ed Thompson, who retired this summer from Mobile’s Fox-10 TV. You are a member of the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA). What led to that? I’ve been writing non-fiction articles about the military for decades – for base newspapers and spouses’ magazines all over the world. Occasionally I’d submit travel articles to Army/Navy/Air Force Times. At their core is a love of the men and women who defend America. Members have a deeply personal understanding of the sacrifice and dedication our armed forces make. I’ve lived that life, but I’ve also been writing those sorts of story most of my life. I read that Stars and Stripes everyday while I was stationed in Germany. I loved that paper. In fact I brought home a few for souvenirs. For anyone who may not know, Stars and Stripes is like a hometown newspaper for U.S. military, Department of Defense civilians, contractors and families serving over seas. By the time Tom, my Air Force second lieutenant, had matured into a colonel in the mid- 1990s, I had a realistic understanding of what it meant to be a military spouse. It’s not all travel and soirees at the officer’s club. When Tom was stationed in Germany, Stars and Stripes hired me to write freelance opinion-editorial columns as accompaniment to their SUNDAY magazine’s lead stories. My assigned topics covered everything from computer sex in America to the pain that many childless women experience on Mother’s Day. I also wrote several travel articles for the paper, plus human interest features celebrating the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. I’m proud to have been a small part of the heritage of a uniquely American publication that began in the 1860s as a paper for Union troops during the Civil War. You were an officer's wife for 30 years, traveling the world. Looking back on those times what do you miss? There is an almost spiritual aspect to nature in Hawaii to those who are open to it. I miss that. I miss the call of the cuckoo when hiking the forests in Europe during early summer. I miss the fun-loving Germans and Swiss and their fabulous food; I miss English pubs in winter with their wood-burning fires and eccentric people. I miss wine tasting in France and weekends spent in Budapest and Prague. You don’t get rich in the military, but sometimes, just for brief moments, you get to live almost like wealthy people might. What do you not miss? I don’t miss my husband being a group commander in Greece in the late 1980s where our off-base home had a terrorist-proof bathroom with a red-line phone to Hellenikon Air Base in case we came under attack. The security forces assigned all the commanders’ wives secret code names. Mine was “Ripcord.” I could never remember that. I asked the command post if I could be “Button” or “Velcro,” but they said no, Ripcord fit my personality. LOL. Still not sure what they meant. BTW, Ripcord was almost kidnapped the day before America bombed Libya. Some of the finest people in the world are Greek, but we lived there in a difficult period of their nation’s history. Our school buses had guards with Uzi machine guns. Nightmares for military children were not unusual. . . one of those things you don’t have to even think about if you’re a civilian. Military families and children often pay a high price for their mama’s and/or daddy’s choice of career. You could have settled anywhere in the world. Why Atmore, Alabama? Wow! Good and unexpected question with an easy answer. To get through my daddy’s funeral at my gorgeous little Episcopal Church in Atmore, I turned to what had provided the most spiritual comfort in my childhood. As I always did while Tom and I traveled the world, I turned to the constancy of my Episcopal faith and rituals. Along with the Book of Common Prayer, they were the touchstone to my Atmore, Alabama heritage. Six years later Tom retired. Born in New Orleans and raised on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, he was willing to take me back to my hometown. I followed him all over the world for thirty years. Maybe it was pay-back. He’s as much a part of the community now as I am. You have just finished a book. Tell us about that. Perhaps as this interview illustrates, the military isn’t just a job or even a career; it’s a way of life. As a former Stars and Stripes columnist and an officer’s wife of three decades, I intimately know the professional and social nuances of that lifestyle. I incorporated my knowledge into a novel, Your Gift to Me. My co-author is a gifted writer, a civilian graphic designer named Bob Vale of Ocean Township, New Jersey. Someone once said Latino & Vale sound more like an ice skating team than a writing partnership. How do you describe the book? Is it a military thriller? Your Gift to Me does have a suspense sub-plot, but it’s basically a mystical love story about finding love after tragedy. Set against the realm of the contemporary fighter pilot, Your Gift to Me might best be described as Top Gun meets Steel Magnolias. What else keeps you busy? I have wonderful friends and two crazy-fun sisters. One of them lives in Atmore. I also spend a lot of time volunteering for Trinity Episcopal Church and the Atmore Historical Society. I also am a regular contributor for Atmore News and atmore magazine. Occasionally I freelance for the Mobile Register. But my heart belongs to Tom and his little Bichon Frise, Sweetie Pie, who has epilepsy and a host of other medical problems that ensure our veterinarian’s son will be able go to any college he chooses. Your story, "The Rush of Butterflies" was recently chosen as one of eight finalists for the Military Writers Society of America People's Choice Award. The contest was originally open to over eight hundred members of MWSA. The public was given nearly a month to vote for their favorite. On October 10 at the MWSA conference in Orlando, Florida, your story was announced as the 2009 People's Choice Award winner. You have to be excited? LOL. Shocked might be a better word...followed by grateful. I'm grateful to MWSA for sponsoring this annual contest that promotes writers who have deeply personal insight into America's amazing military. However, perhaps the one word that best sums up my emotions about winning a national writing contest is validated. I feel validated as a writer that a panel of judges found merit in my writing, and that apparently a lot of people were touched enough by my story to make time to vote. That, Sir, is a gift, which is the big pay-off for me in this contest. And, Bill, I genuinely appreciate the part you and visitors to gulf-shores-travel-guide.com played in my winning the People's Choice Award. You’re the most generous man I NEVER met! Thank you, Bonnie. Anyone interested in learning more about Bonnie Latino and Bob Vale's unpublished novel, YOUR GIFT TO ME, can visit their web site complete with video book trailer at Your Gift To Me. (via email) “For over a decade I have enjoyed reading stories from Bonnie Bartel Latino's hand. She has a style that allows the reader to see the story through her words. That approach clearly brings her work to life. Intimate details she includes make you know that she has done her homework.”... Retired Air Force General Paul V. Hester (Commander, Air Force Special Operations Command at Hurlburt Field (2002-2003), Florida... Commander, the Pacific Air Forces at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii (2004-2007). Review of the Rise of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians
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