A Publication To Call Home Magazine To Serve On-Move Military Brats

Susan Cassidy was always the new kid on the block.

In the first 21 years of her life, Cassidy’s family moved 18 times - almost one relocation a year through 15 states, four high schools and three family dogs.

Now, at 37, Cassidy has exchanged life as a military brat for a duplex in this east Seattle suburb and a mission: producing a magazine for kids in the same boat - Nomad: The Brat Journal.

Using her experience as the child of an Air Force colonel, Cassidy has shaped the magazine into a monthly survival guide for teenage children of military personnel all over the world.

“We wanted specifically to create a community that sits above city and state boundaries, that remains constant no matter how many times the kids move,” said Cassidy, a lively woman whose voice is laced with a soft Southern twang.

“The magazine will provide kids with solid information that would help them deal with challenges.”

With the launch issue scheduled for January, about 25,000 copies of a special preview edition hit the racks with an ambitious thump in late September at base and post exchanges - the military equivalent of department stores - across the United States and as far away as Frankfurt, Germany, and Okinawa, Japan.

“It’s the first of its kind that I’ve seen,” said Patrick Riordan, a base exchange manager at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina.

“It lets the kids know they’re not alone. That’s the most important thing. And it’s written at their level. It’s definitely not a textbook.”

Riordan, 47, himself an Air Force brat, moved 17 times before he finished high school. A magazine like Nomad would have been a nice resource, he said.

His 13-year-old son, Joshua, gives Nomad a teenager’s highest praise - “Awesome!”

Nomad’s glossy pages are filled with peppy fashion pieces, music reviews and astrological predictions - a light blend for its 13- to 19-year-old target audience. More serious topics - eating disorders, teen suicide, divorce and AIDS will be addressed in future issues.

And unlike other teeny-bopper magazines, it’s written mostly by military brats themselves.

“We wanted to get kids to tell each other what’s important and what’s hip and cool because they’re the most reliable sources,” Cassidy said.

Sixteen-year-old Chrissy Parmeley of Bremerton, whose father is in the Navy, has her own column.

“I think that it’s great somebody finally decided to make something for the military kids,” she said. “It gives them something to hold to when they go around the world.”

Each issue will feature interviews with military brats who have made good - actor Blair Underwood, Heisman trophy contender Danny Wuerffel at Florida and singer M. Doughty of the alternative rock band Soul Coughing.

Cassidy, a desktop publisher, is putting the magazine together at home - not an easy task.

“You’re wearing 800 different hats, it seems like. It’s a full-time, seven-day, 24-hour job,” she said, noting that she hopes to double Nomad’s circulation to 50,000 by the end of 1997.

“A lot of people said we couldn’t do it and we have,” she said. “They think we’re nuts.”

MEMO: A subscription to Nomad: The Brat Journal costs $16.95 for 10 issues. The magazine can be reached at (206) 820-9951 or nomadpub(at)aol.com. The magazine’s website is http:/ /members.aol.com/nomadpub/ nomad.htm.