The Long Way Home

by Scott, Jessica

  I can’t turn my brain off about this subject. It’s keeping me awake and driving me to distraction.

  And I’m not sure what to do about it.

  The Impossible Task: Being A Good Mom

  March 8, 2010

  THE ARMY TEACHES OFFICERS how to deal in expectation management. Don’t tell the brigade commander he’s going to have Time Warner Cable in Iraq. Make sure he knows it’s going to be like dial-up, then he’ll be happy if he gets DSL.

  The Army also warns about expectation management when you come home. Don’t come in and take over, it tells dads coming home to kids they don’t know and a wife who has done it all for the last year. Tell her she’s done a good job and ask where you can help out. Don’t expect the kids to be all over you. They might not want to talk to you, or might be afraid of you, or worse, might not know you.

  Except that these expectations deal with the majority of folks in the Army: dads and husbands. There really isn’t a good guide out there on how to deal with the mommy guilt, what to do when your kids says “I don’t think you love me” or is just plain stubborn because she can be. They don’t tell you what to do when you just want to scream. Actually they do tell you what to do: get pills and get counseling.

  But that doesn’t alleviate the mommy guilt that makes me wonder just how good a parent I am, and whether I’m doing the right thing. Do my kids know that I love them, even if I have to take some time for myself? Or do I really need to sacrifice everything that makes me who I am in order for them to be reasonably well-adjusted adults.

  I made a comment on Twitter this morning about the Virgin Mary screwing me (and all mothers) by raising the bar to impossibly heights. I mean, hell, she raised the savior of humanity, I’m just hoping not to raise an ax murderer. (FYI, I am Catholic and, so I’m hoping She understands, if anyone could, the trials and tribulations of trying to be a good mom). But no one ever pictures the Virgin Mary losing her temper or arguing with Jesus about what to wear to school or would He please eat so He’s not late.

  No, instead the ideal of being a good mom, for me, would mean less self-doubt. A little more calm. A lot less yelling and a lot more hugs.

  And it would have helped if the Army recognized that moms go through a whole lot more when they come home than the dads do. So many dads have a wife who has held it together for the last year and they get to fit back in. They don’t have to start completely over from scratch with two kids who thought you’d abandoned them and who feel guilty for loving the Grammy who took such awesome care of them.

  And the only people who really understand just how challenging this is, is another mom. But all of our situations are different. All of the demands we place on ourselves are different. I want my kids to be well-fed and well-rested and happy. I’d like to start the morning off without screaming and crying and yelling just to make it out the door. I thought those were pretty reasonable expectations.

  Guess I need to readjust the bar. Hope the Virgin Mother will help me with that, because it’s a pretty big struggle right about now.

  The Army is Fun

  March 9, 2010

  THINGS HAVE BEEN A little too serious here on the blog for the last couple of posts. I’ve been literally obsessing about the questions that PBS has raised in my brain and am starting to annoy myself.

  All work and no play make Jess way too serious a girl.

  So on that note, I’m going to share some of the oddball things that I’ve done or heard or experienced that cracked me up over the years. It’s the off beat crap that you really can’t see anyone doing, let alone find funny, unless you’ve been in the Army and been around a bunch of bored eighteen year olds trying to keep themselves amused.

  If you’ve never read the Skippy List, it’s a good primer. I first saw it in the late 1990s when I was in Germany. More recently, in BOLC II (Basic Officer Leadership Course), I met a guy who said he wrote it, which of course made it all the funnier.

  But I digress.

  So y’all know there’s a no porn rule in the Army, right? Well, there wasn’t always such a clear-cut message and whenever we went to the field the guys had their TMs (which officially stand for Technical Manuals but unofficially meant titty mags). (Seriously, try not to be offended. I could care less what these guys were whacking it to so long as it wasn’t me). Anyway, back in the 90s we had signal shelters called SENs (small extension nodes). It was a phone company on wheels and I was part of quite possibly the funniest SEN team in Germany. So my old team chief, who is probably reading this and who shall not be named, was really excited about going onto main base and getting the new Playboy. I mean, little kid at Christmas excited.

  It was embarrassing. And I loved nothing more than screwing with this guy. Man, we used to laugh. I’m pretty sure I drove him nuts.

  But he was really excited. So I caught the bus from Vilseck Airfield onto main base and bought a Playgirl, which is kind of shocking if you’ve never seen one. Anyway, it’s 3am and I’m on shift, taping the cover of his Playboy to the Playgirl. I’ve got the edges lined up perfectly and I’m snorting I’m laughing so hard. I wasn’t going to be there to see his face, but man, I could picture it.

  Apparently, when he did open the mag, his scream could be heard across the base. I mean, I spent hours making those covers line up. It was the ultimate coup. I can’t remember what he did to get back at me but for some reason pushups and lots of them come to mind.

  It’s stories like these that stick with you over the years and it’s something intangible that people who haven’t been here just don’t understand. There are probably people reading right now going “Huh? That’s not funny, it's offensive. Soldiers have porn?”

  But it is funny. It was then and the memory is even better now. It’s what people do to each other when you’re around them non-stop for days, weeks, or even months on end.

  Finding the flux capacitor in Iraq is one of those memories, but that’s another story for another time. There is a certain rawness about being in the Army that I enjoy. I can relax and laugh with the gang and it’s fun. It’s about the only time I really feel like myself.

  I guess my overall point is that if I spend all my time thinking about the serious stuff, I’ll miss the funny stuff that makes the Army so great.

  The New Writer’s Learning Curve

  March 16, 2010

  I’VE BEEN WORKING ON getting published since 2007. Late 2007 to be fair, but 2007 nonetheless. It is now 2010 and I remain not only unpublished but unagented as well.

  We’re talking three years now that I have been working toward something I have yet to achieve. While I had an agent for a brief smattering of time and it was a huge learning experience for me, I still remain essentially where I was in November 2007 when I first wrote The End.

  This is not bad. Frustrating? Yes. But not bad.

  Repeat after me. Not being published for me, at this point, is not bad. Looking back on everything I have learned in the last three years, the amount of change I have undergone as a writer is phenomenal. I know I am stronger today than I was in January 2008 when I had my first partial request (thank you, Stephanie Evans). She was the very first agent who said “Send me your stuff” and “Oh, by the way, it’s not quite there yet.”

  I am glad she and the others have passed. I know this sounds like sarcasm but it is not. To be honest, I would not want to look back on that first book and see it in print. It was beyond terrible. I had no business querying it but I couldn’t see it.

  The second book I queried, I see much improvement in. But I still have much to learn. While I would like to see this book in print because I believe in the story and the characters, if it doesn’t happen, I’m okay with that.

  I look at my writing career as a bit of self-torture. The more brutal the critique, the harder it is to look at it and say, “Okay, what’s really going on?” But being able to look at those comments, when you’re fortunate enough to get them, and learn from them, is a key piece of growth for any write
r. So no matter that comments are brutal, are they true? Being able to determine not if they are but why they are or are not is the key lesson to learn.

  As I dig into revisions on the third project I’m going to query, I find myself looking at huge chunks of text and saying, “I really don’t need this. It’s cool info but it does nothing to advance the plot. Cut. This, I could put into dialogue and show. Revise. This makes my character look like a coward but I need the scene. Fix.”

  Being able to look at my manuscript and not love everything about it is a huge lesson for me. Major. Culling thirty pages is not easy but in my case as I found with the first hundred pages, necessary. Being able to see that it’s necessary without my fab critique partner Julie thumping me over the head with the printed manuscript, even better.

  So in the three years since I decided “I’m a writer,” I’ve learned a ton. I’ve had an amazing amount of support from fellow writers, offering advice, guidance and, quite often, a shoulder to cry on. I will continue to learn and grow. And in the event that an agent decides to take me on, neuroses and all, I will endeavor to keep learning.

  At the end of the day, that’s all I can control.

  The Meaning of Honor

  March 17, 2010

  THIS POST HAS BEEN building for a long time. I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut and act like a grown-up, mature professional.

  But who the hell am I kidding?

  Friday was the rededication of the First Cavalry Division’s Memorial to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice. This was the third time the Cav has rededicated the memorial since the war began, etching new names of our fallen brothers and sisters into the black granite. The memorial stands in front of the First Cav headquarters for all to see, a silent tribute to a soldier who gave their life. Friday, we added sixty-nine more names to the immortal wall.

  Standing in that crowd and paying respect to my fallen brothers and sisters means something to me, as it does to everyone who has ever lost someone next to them who wore the uniform. The American Flag became more than cloth to me the first time I stood on that airfield in Mosul and saluted a flag-draped coffin. And my uniform means something to me because my brothers- and sisters-in-arms have bled and died in these colors.

  When someone, man or woman, raises their right hand and volunteers to become a soldier, they are signing on to become someone different. We are taught to uphold the Army Values. Those Army Values may be just words on a poster to many but to some of us, they are more than words.

  So when people who have never worn the uniform dare to call all the men and women who wear it dishonorable, disloyal, liars, or criminals, it deeply offends me to the very seat of my soul.

  I just ordered Dark Hearts: One Platoon’s Journey into Madness. The book is about the Mahmoudiya murder committed by Stephen Green and his platoon. These men raped and murdered a fourteen year old Iraqi girl and then murdered her entire family to conceal the crime. This was not warfare. This was murder. This was dishonor.

  Being willing to kill in combat is not the same as murder.

  In Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore dared to portray soldiers as amoral killers because they listened to Drowning Pool’s “Bodies” as they rolled outside the gate. What Mr. Moore fails to realize is the loyalty and bonds that will enable you to do anything to bring the men and women next to you home alive. If “Bodies” got our boys in that tank in the right frame of mind to go out and come home alive, then so be it. They are soldiers and it is not a kind, gentle thing that soldiers are asked to do for our nation. Our nation asks us to kill and while we will do our best to do so with restraint, if you have never worn a uniform, then you have no right to pretend to know what my brothers- and sisters-in-arms go through each time they roll outside the wire.

  I’m supposed to say I’ll defend to my death your right to free speech. I’m supposed to say that diverse opinions are what makes America great. But when you take an entire Army of soldiers, noncommissioned officers and officers and call them dishonorable, there is no further dialogue. We have reached mutually exclusive terrain that cannot be shared. There is nothing I can say that will convince you that even if your point has any semblance of validity, you should not say that all soldiers and leaders are dishonorable.

  Is there dishonor within the ranks? Yes. I will not sit here and lie to you and pretend that we do not have criminals, thieves, and cowards wearing our uniform. But you cannot stand there and call us all by these names just because a few actually deserve it.

  Honor means something to me. Doing the right thing means something to me and it means something to a majority of the men and women I stood next to last week as we honored our fallen brothers and sisters.

  Question the policy. Question actions of individuals. Demand that individuals be held responsible for their actions.

  But don’t you dare call me or the men and women I serve with dishonorable.

  You don’t know the meaning of the word.

  I Don’t Know If I Can Read This Book

  March 20, 2010

  I HAVEN’T GOTTEN VERY far into Black Hearts by Jim Frederick. As in I’ve made it through the first section of the first chapter and have read the most horrifying description of what men who wore our uniform did to an Iraqi family.

  I don’t want to read this book because I don’t want to look at the men of that platoon and see them as human beings. I don’t want to feel anything other than loathing for the men who committed one of the most notorious war crimes of the Iraq war, if not the worst. I don’t want to know their names and I don’t want to understand what motivated them.

  Reading this book is going to take me to a place I don’t want to go. To confront the true horror that walks among us, simply waiting for the right cocktail of things to go wrong.

  I don’t know if I can read this book, but at the same time, to turn away is to turn away from the truth of what our men did. Because as much as I want to view them as murderers and monsters, they were ours. Until the day they walked off that COP (combat outpost), they were ours. But the moment they made the choices they made, they ceased being ours. They ceased being human and they joined a class of other for which there is no repentance. You cannot come back from a crime like they committed.

  I don’t believe justice has been served by sentencing Steven Green to life in prison. The horror that he inflicted on one Iraqi family is too great for him to sit in a prison cell the rest of his life. The shame he brought to our nation is too great for him to still be breathing.

  Reading Black Hearts is going to be one of the hardest books I’ll ever have to read. The other war narratives I have read have had our boys trying to get home. Black Hawk Down. The Long Road Home. These were stories of soldiers. Of ordinary men.

  I don’t know that Black Hearts is going to tell me the story of ordinary men. I don’t want to believe that ordinary men could rape and murder a young girl, then set the body on fire and murder her entire family to conceal the crime. How does an ordinary man do something like this, no matter the stress? It is easy to sit back and call them monsters. I never walked in their shoes. I am comfortable in the thoughts that I would never walk in their shoes. I would never look at a child and dream up the most horrific crime.

  In the end, not to read this book would be an act of cowardice on my part. So I’ll read it. But I don’t think it will be easy. And I don’t think I will be able to look in the face of my fellow soldiers with an easy heart again.

  When You Query The Wrong Book

  March 21, 2010

  WHEN I FIRST STARTED writing, my fabulous mentor Candace Irvin said “Go to the bookstore and figure out what you’re like. You need to know the market before you can start to see where you fit.”

  So I went. I read Joann Ross, Cindy Gerard, Suzanne Brockmann, Marliss Melton, and others. I read Robyn Carr after Roxanne St Claire said that maybe I’m more like her. After all, I’ve got military heroes, I’ve got to be like one of these great ladies, right?

  O
h, how wrong I was. Here’s the problem and it’s not one I’m sure I can overcome. I’m not romantic suspense. So my War’s Darkest Series is not like Suzanne Brockmann’s SEAL Team series where there’s a cast of eight or so strapping men to pick a story from. None of my characters are Special Operations Forces.

  My characters are also not prior military like Robyn Carr’s heroes, who have all gotten out and headed up country to Virgin River, hoping to find a new life away from their military experiences. My guys are the Every-Soldier, my women spouses, nurses, and warriors themselves. No Special Forces, Navy SEALs, or Black Ops. Just regular soldiers, fighting the good fight.

  So my books don’t fit. They aren’t small town-based like Robyn’s and they’re not suspense like JoAnn, Cindy, or Suzanne. In short, there’s nothing out there that I can compare to because it seems like everyone has either written prior military characters or Navy SEALs.

  When I wrote military romance in a query letter, little did I know I was speaking in code for romantic suspense. When agents are reading it, they’re looking for suspense. Fast pacing, action, action, romance, action. And that’s not what I wrote. I write character-based, contemporary romance with men and women who are all still in the military. I write books that are not suspense except that by putting “military” in the query, I’m telling agents that’s what they are.

  I screwed myself, apparently. I feel like when I sent out this last round of queries, I should have put in big bold letters, THIS IS NOT ROMANTIC SUSPENSE. I don’t know that it would have helped. I’m reasonably certain there are other issues in my current WIP but I’m also reasonably certain that the main problem agents are seeing is that they’re reading for romantic suspense and putting the book down when it doesn’t live up their expectations, wrong or not.