The Long Way Home

by Scott, Jessica

  For those of you who have no idea about inventories, here’s how it goes. The soldiers lay out every piece of equipment associated with an item. So let’s say you have a field kitchen (MKT). That one line item on the property book has probably a hundred components and you have to see every single component to ensure that it’s there, that it’s working, and that it’s then signed for.

  It takes hours and days of work to get through inventories. It’s brain-meltingly boring and yet, one of the most important and time-consuming activities in the change of command process. It’s also a way for my soldiers to understand what’s important to me and if they can account for a wrench, then they can account for their buddy or their soldiers.

  The change of command process is time-consuming and tiring but exciting, too. I’m honored and awed to have this opportunity but I can tell you, I’m a little daunted. I keep having dreams that my BN CDR is going to fire me or that I’m going to screw up in a major, life-altering way. I suppose it’s my psyche’s way of keeping me sane. At least, that’s my story.

  Writing

  The nonfiction book may not be dead after all. Seeking new ethics review from new chain of command. Also, heard back from my agent on my WIP and, while he had recommended changes, he did not say throw the whole thing out and start over, which was very encouraging. So there’s still a ton of work to be done there, a little bit at a time (because damn, I’m tired).

  And that’s where I’m at.

  The Case of The Vanishing Blog

  October 5, 2010

  WHEN I WAS IN Iraq and before I really knew what it meant to be a full-time writer, I was never really sure why people said they didn’t have time to read other people’s manuscripts. I had plenty of time in Iraq. I figured I’d have less when I got home but it would be okay.

  I’d even started a group blog, geared toward writers of military romance novels. I’d had a bunch of writers commit and then one by one, they started slowly backing away. I’m not complaining, I was one of the ones who backed away. I’m ashamed to realize just how wrong I was about the amount of time blogging takes from everyday life. Even my own blog is suffering lately as I try to find things to write about that are still relevant to writing and military life. So today, I’m sad to announce that Romance Roll Call will be fading away, like so many other blogs. My own personal blog will continue and I’ll leave the site up for as long as the hosting contract continues but at the end of it, I won’t be renewing it.

  As things have settled down with my children and my family, there’s less to talk about. As I’ve made the transition from lieutenant to captain, there’s more self-censorship. Oh, there’s things I’m dying to talk about, but can’t or won’t. I know. I’ve never been a paragon of self-restraint but what do you know, we all change and grow. The writing continues at a depressingly slow pace, primarily because by 10pm, I’m a pumpkin and can barely keep my eyes open. I’ve given up reading any digests from any of the RWA groups I belong to and I’m lucky to respond to emails at this point. I feel guilty for letting all of that slide, but at the same time, I honestly can’t do it all and something’s got to give.

  Most of all, I miss books. I’ve been on a nonfiction glom for months now and every time I pick up fiction, nothing has been really holding my interest long enough sit and finish a book.

  I’m struggling to keep the writing going, honestly. At the end of the day, the ideas are building up because I don’t have the time to get them all down. I think part of it is because I’m in a period of transition and have been for the last sixty days or so. Hopefully, things will settle down. There will be more on the blog coming on Army leadership in the next few weeks as well as on making the transition into company command and mentorship.

  And I’ll get there. I’ve worked too hard to finally have an agent who loves my ideas and gets the way I think. I’ve worked too hard to have made it through RWA Nationals for the first time to slink away now because it’s too challenging. And I’ve worked too hard to step back from company command and say I can’t do this. I have a chance to really make a difference as a commander who wants to make a difference. How can I pass any of that up?

  The balancing act continues. I’ll make it work. And hey, at least my kiddos like to read and write, too.

  A New Rant: Death Watch

  October 10, 2010

  THE HOUSTON CHRONICLE RAN an article today, entitled “Death Watch” and the subject was the rampant increase in suicides in our military, notably the four suicides that took place at Fort Hood two weekends ago. I have no issue with the article itself.

  I have issue with the commenter who said, “Four deployments in five years would indicate either a serious addiction to adrenaline or a disconnect with normal life. Limit deployments and re-institute the draft with no deferrals.”

  Really? Four deployments in five years is an adrenaline addiction or disconnect with real life? Get a g(*)*damned clue. Have you got any idea how often the brigade combat teams have deployed? How about some brigades are on their fourth deployments in five years. How about a high number of soldiers (enlisted primarily) are locked into these assignments for as long as six years and guess what, have no choice but to deploy again and again and again. Every time the leadership changes out, new decisions are made as to who gets to leave and who gets to stay.

  It is damn near impossible to get back into a normal family life with less than a year home. And while you might be physically not in theater, you damn sure can’t be said to be at “home.” Do you know how much it takes to train a brigade combat team to deploy? How many times do those units go to the field, to the National Training Center, to Gunnery in order to ensure their young men and women are prepared for the next fight?

  Don’t sit there and blame a soldier who deployed four times in five years for his own suicide. Don’t sit there and say he had a choice to deploy or not to deploy. It’s easy to sit on your couch and watch the news and surf the internet and say, “Well, he could have gotten out of the military,” when you have no concept of the bonds with your fellow soldiers or the pressure to ensure that your family is taken care of or the patriotism that demands we serve our nation. You have no right to say a soldier died by his own hand because he was an “adrenaline junkie” when you obviously have no idea what you’re talking about.

  Are there people in the ranks who want to return to combat over and over again? Yep. No argument there. But don’t say that a number of deployments means he made the choice to go over and over again. I’d bet you anything that young sergeant and thousands of our other young soldiers who desperately need to take a knee would gladly do so if afforded the opportunity, but only if it didn’t let down their brothers- and sisters-in-arms.

  Self-Censoring

  October 11, 2010

  I MADE A COMMENT in yesterday’s blog about the fact that I find myself censoring what I say on my blog more and more since I became a captain and a couple folks wanted to know more about what I meant.

  Honestly, I’m not sure. Even when I was writing for PBS, a national platform, I still felt free to say what was on my mind. Something has changed recently and I’m not entirely sure if it’s the transition to captain, the transition to company commander or what. One thing I’ve noticed though is that I’m pretty sure the Oprah Show calling has impacted what I say because as a national and pretty popular show, it would draw more attention than more academic topics. I don’t mean that in a negative way, just that some people have the same reaction to Oprah as I have to Harvard. Granted, it was a brief moment of pure awesomeness to have that message on my answering machine and one that I probably won’t forget any time soon, but given the subject matter that the show was focusing on, I wasn’t keen to play.

  That said, I also stepped in it a little bit last week when I published a blog about STD mandatory testing for female soldiers only. Instantly, it was picked up by a veterans group and I realized that with that post, I realized fully that what I was saying could easily be twisted i
nto something negative towards the military (which was not my intent but more on that in a second). In my mind, and I might be completely wrong about this, but when I say something, I speak for self and express only my opinions. But that doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. It doesn’t matter that I have the disclaimer up on my website that clearly says I don’t speak for Uncle Sam or DoD; the bottom line is that my soldiers’ spouses, my soldiers, or the media (my local paper follows me on Twitter, too) could easily pick up on what I’m saying and twist it.

  Think of it this way. Have you ever played the game Telephone? My old battalion executive officer used to make us XOs play it and it drove me crazy, primarily because I can’t whisper but that’s beside the point. The point of the game was to show how communications is easily twisted between five people sitting in a room. Just look at how easy it is for quotes to be taken out of context and cause a huge media fiasco for politicians or worse, four star generals in the middle of a war.

  The bottom line is that given all the negative publicity the Army has right now—and the real problems behind that publicity—I’m concerned about being used to advance the anti-military agenda. I’m glad the Oprah Show is doing a piece on the challenges that women face when coming home. I simply wish it would be more tempered with the framework that we must work within. I’m glad we have organizations like SWAN that are advocating for those women who are truly victims and cannot speak for themselves. But I also feel like when the media only focuses on the problems that women have in military society, we ignore all the good that the military has to offer.

  I guess at the end of it all, I’m working to make a difference within my own formation and I don’t want this blog to be a distracter that takes away from what I want to accomplish with my company and within my battalion. I’ve always looked at this blog as my way of explaining things to the world and I’ve always self-censored to a degree, especially when I was in theater. Now, though, honestly, I feel like the potential for something negative to come from this site or from my comments elsewhere is growing, hence I’m being more cautious.

  But don’t worry. There will still be rants and raves. There will still be some WTF moments and all that has been the fun in making this blog what it is. I’m just going to think a little harder about second and third order effects and a little more about media relations now that I’m a company commander.

  Company Command

  &

  The 4th Deployment

  2010-2011

  Initial Thoughts on Company Command

  November 1, 2010

  OKAY, NEARLY THREE WEEKS into my adventure as a company commander, I can finally come up for air and talk a little bit about it. First, it’s insanely busy. From the moment I took the guidon, I feel like I’ve been playing catch up and am still about a hundred yards behind the formation. But thankfully, I’ve got a good team of NCOs leading the way. When officers talk about the NCOs being the backbone of the Army, I could never fully appreciate it until now. Nothing would get done without them and the incredible strength of the enlisted soldiers. We as leaders owe it to them to train them and build the team and promote those who qualify, not just those who meet the time-in-grade requirements.

  There would be no accurate discussion of command without talking about my problem children. There are limited things that I can/will say but for those who suggest that problem soldiers are signs of problem leadership, I’ll agree but only in part. Since we’ve been at war, the Army has willingly looked aside at problems in soldier’s personal lives, content that if they were doing their job, then everything was fine. That’s not good enough and it hasn’t been for a very long time. Senior leadership is talking about invasive leadership, getting back into soldiers’ lives and identifying problems before they explode in violence. But it’s more than that.

  Our soldiers who have joined the Army since 9/11 have maintained an operational tempo higher than any generation of soldiers before them. Many of them have few life skills regarding the basics. An E2 who makes $1400 a month should not have a $250 phone bill. Hell, I’m an O3E and I make a hell of a lot more than that and I don’t have a $250 phone bill. So one of the things I’m making a focus is life skills training, using my FRG and the vast array of Army services to help teach some of these lost young folks how to manage their personal lives. Because contrary to popular belief, your personal life absolutely affects your military life and I’m continually seeing the same soldiers for the same problems. So it’s time to engage with those issues aggressively.

  The great part about being a commander is being able to set conditions and priorities for my unit. Granted there’s always guidance from higher but I believe in bringing the team together and coming up with the way forward. My E5s and E4s are going to get the opportunity to step up in ways they never thought probable before. My XO is going to know how it feels to be a commander and so are my other lieutenants. Because at the end of the day, if I’m not building my bench, if I’m not building the next generation of leaders, then I’m truly not doing my job.

  My insomnia is back. With a vengeance. I lie awake at night worrying about a couple of soldiers who are so close to the edge it’s not even funny. I’ve got my arms wrapped so tight around them but I fear what may happen. And at the end of it all, the alarm goes off at 0455 and I do it all over again.

  This is nothing like I expected. It’s so much easier to sit on the outside and say ”That’s an easy decision why won’t the commander just do X?” Let me tell you, it’s a whole other ballgame when it comes to being the person who makes that decision, and it’s something I never fully appreciated until I took the guidon. It’s so easy to cast stones. It’s so easy to say “That’s easy.” It’s not. And if it is, then maybe you’re not doing it right. Because this responsibility is unbelievable. I can’t believe how differently I see things after only two and a half weeks in the seat.

  This is going to change me. It’s simply a question of how much and in what direction.

  I’m Going to Get Banned

  November 11, 2010

  SO MY BIG NEWS this week is that I finally turned my book Angels Before Me into my agent. It feels pretty good, not the least because it’s the first book I’ve written start to finish from scratch by starting with a synopsis.

  Technically, it started with a paragraph. See, when Richard took me on as a client, he took me on as a nonfiction client. I’d written a proposal for a book about women in the military that…oh, I don’t know, doesn’t paint us all as suffering victims of rape and misogyny. But that book—for now at least—has been killed by the ethics police.

  Which prompted Richard and me to have a couple of conversations. About like, oh, I don’t know, where to go next. So I shot him about eight ideas.

  The only two he liked existed in synopsis form only. Really? I mean, here I was getting ready to take command and I needed to have something already done. Nope. He liked the two that weren’t written. Cue need to learn a process that did not involve throwing out the whole book and starting over. Technically, you could say I wrote this book six times, three in synopsis and three in full . But having just turned it in, I’m kind of…oh, I don’t know, terrified?

  Because I wrote a young adult novel about war. About family violence. And there’s a little bit of faith thrown in, sometimes abandoning it and sometimes coming back to it. And this a kids’ book. Now, I won’t go and say there’s gratuitous violence in it but I also didn’t pull back on certain things. Certain things that Richard said “Oh no, you’re cheating if you don’t put them on the page.”

  I was not comfortable with the idea of putting some of these things on the page. Some remained off stage. Others, though, other scenes found a way onto the page. And I just know for a fact that I’m going to have some folks highly pissed at what I’ve written.

  I think back to the blog I wrote about the censorship over in Humble, Texas and Eileen Hopkins’s books being banned from the teen reader event. I think about being put i
n that same uninvited category (presuming of course that this thing sells). At the end of it, I looked at the reasons that Hopkins wrote Crank. As a means of understanding. As therapy. As a way of bringing something that teens are dealing with into the broad light of day and acknowledging that it’s real.

  At the end of it all, I wrote Angels Before Me as a means of understanding. As a means of putting myself in my daughters’ shoes. As a means of seeing my transition back to being a parent through my daughters’ eyes. Angels Before Me is fiction but I won’t tell you I didn’t pull from some deeply personal emotions. I hope it sells. I hope people can see honesty in the pages. I hope parents read it with their kids. I hope soldiers read it before they come home. I have so much hope for this book. I hope it doesn’t get banned but I can see where some parents might be afraid of their kids reading it.

  I wrote it. And when I did my final read through, I asked myself: would I let my own children read this, when they’re old enough? Yeah, I would. I mean, it’s not something I want my six year old reading right now. But down the road? When she’s curious about everything that happened when Mommy and Daddy came home from Iraq together? Maybe it’ll give her a little insight into what we were going through. Who knows. Maybe she’ll never read it.

  And maybe it won’t sell. But I wrote it honestly. I wrote the story as I thought it needed to be told. And if that makes parents uncomfortable, they don’t have to read it and they don’t have to let their kids read it. But I hope they’ll read it for themselves first and decide for themselves.

  In many ways, Angels Before Me is a first book to me. But in many more, it will remain special to me. Wish me luck, folks. I’m sending my baby out into the world for everyone to either laugh at or enjoy or tell me it’s ugly. At the end of it all, I just hope it’s worth reading.