[citation needed] She wrote the book Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress.
Born into a career Army family, Mary Brightwell Edwards, as she was then named, lived in 20 houses and attended 12 schools by the time she was 18.
She worked for two newspapers in Virginia, doing investigative reporting, feature writing, and a column, before moving to San Francisco and Chicago to pursue other projects.
Through this process, her book identifies military brats as a hidden American subculture, and details patterns in this population along sociological and psychological lines.
She has stated that the new book will focus on third culture children and the experience of "belonging" as this relates to outsider feelings held widely by this population.
When the locker is filled, it is emptied and the contents are safely stored in the MAMF museum archives, and brought out for exhibits honoring the millions of children who have been and will be shaped by this unique way of life.