Today We Go Home

by Kelli Estes

  Let me now beg forgiveness from all women who have ever served. I was wrong. I was ignorant. Sure, until 2013 when the U.S. Department of Defense lifted the ban on women in combat, women were “officially” kept from serving in the same capacity as men. But throughout history, numerous women stood on the battlefield being shot at and killed, whether they were officially there or not. Women served on the front lines in all our wars—as nurses or spies, or in some other role—and were in the same danger as the men from enemy fire and bombs.

  Many nurses refused to leave when ordered to because injured soldiers needed their help. But women weren’t only there as nurses. They volunteered for service in women’s auxiliaries and proudly served their country, only to face intense discrimination, sexual harassment, and shaming from the country as whole as a result of rumors that they were nothing more than “clean” girls there to meet the soldiers’ needs. This book is my attempt at righting the record and spreading the word that women in the military were and are badass. They are strong, resilient, equally as capable as men. To all women who have served, you are my heroes, and I struggle to find adequate words to convey the depth of my gratitude and reverence for you. All I have is thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

  Many military service members and veterans are, like Larkin and Emily, suffering from the traumas they experienced while in the service. Each person’s story is different. Each trauma is different. Each path to healing is different. We civilians owe our sisters and brothers who served our support, compassion, patience, and respect.

  As of this writing (December 2018), there are 1,067,917 active duty enlisted personnel in the American military. Of those, 16.30 percent are female. If you count officers, enlisted and cadets/midshipmen, the total serving is 1,310,731, with 16.70 percent women (source). Women are more than twice as likely as men to develop PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) at a rate of 10 percent for women and 4 percent for men. Reasons for this include the fact that women are more likely to experience sexual assault, which is more likely to cause PTSD than many other events, and because women are more likely to blame themselves for trauma experiences than men (source). Among female veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, 20 percent have been diagnosed with PTSD. The rate of PTSD among female Vietnam veterans is 27 percent.

  Although military sexual trauma (MST) is the cause of many female veteran’s PTSD symptoms, I chose not to address the issue in this book, primarily because it is such a huge problem that it warrants a book of its own. I also noticed as I was researching for this story that many people make the assumption that MST is the only trauma women experience while in military service, but that is simply not the case. Women were in combat long before they were officially allowed to do so, and they have the lasting trauma from it, just like the men with whom they served.

  Now, let’s discuss suicide. We’ve all seen the posters saying that there are 22 veteran suicides per day. Even one is too many. Veterans have a suicide rate 50 percent higher than those who did not serve in the military, and their suicides are most likely to occur in the first three years of returning home to civilian life. The suicide rate for female veterans in 2014 was 19 per 100,000. From 2001 through 2014, the suicide rate among female veterans increased to a greater degree (62.4 percent) than the suicide rate among male veterans (29.7 percent) (source). I don’t know the answers, and I’m certain there are professionals working to reduce these numbers. Still, another hand reaching out to help cannot hurt. Let’s all reach out to our veterans.

  Our female veterans deserve the respect of being recognized by their country and honored for their service, the same as men. Did you know that female veterans typically don’t self-identify as veterans? They don’t. Why would they when civilians and sometimes even male veterans completely push them to the background? Let’s change that. When you meet a woman veteran or actively serving female military member, please, take a moment to really listen to her and know that her sacrifices and experiences are equally as valid as those of the men who serve. And please, whatever you do, when you see a woman wearing military logos or driving around with a veteran bumper sticker, do not, in any instance, assume it was her husband who served and not her. Thank her for her service.

  See her. Hear her. Thank her.

  More about the Real Women Featured in This Story

  Source: They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook. Published in 2002 by Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge.

  Sarah Emma Edmonds, a.k.a. Pvt. Franklin Thompson: Edmonds took on a male identity prior to the war and supported herself as a Bible salesman and publisher’s agent. Although Canadian, she enlisted when the war broke out as a way to support her adopted country in its time of need. She served in the Flint Union Greys, Company F of the 2nd Michigan Infantry, and first worked in hospital duty in the Washington, DC, area and was on the field tending soldiers at the First Battle of Bull Run (Manassas). She went on to fight in other battles as well as perform military duties as a mail carrier and orderly for General Poe, as well as a spy. Edmonds served, undiscovered as a woman, for two years and then decided to desert when she contracted malaria and was afraid medical care would reveal her secret. She went on to serve, as a woman, with the United States Christian Commission until the end of the war. In 1864, she published her memoir of her war experiences, Nurse and Spy in the Union Army, which while largely true, was “not strictly a factual account,” she later admitted.

  V. A. White: White left her home after having a daughter out of wedlock and made her way to Nashville where she became a prostitute at 154 College Street, one of the fancier bordellos in the city. She was successful at her trade and managed to save a good amount of money. After four months, she tired of that life and began to study how to escape it. She bought herself a Union Army uniform, cut her hair, and was sworn into the 1st Michigan Regiment Mechanics, Company D. She served with her regiment until it was mustered out of service in Au Sable, Michigan. She had managed to hold on to her significant savings from her bordello days, and with the money, she bought a home on the shore of Lake Huron where she lived free and independent for the rest of her life.

  Loreta Janeta Velazquez, a.k.a. Lieutenant Harry T. Buford/Alice Williams/Mrs. DeCaulp: Much of what we know about Velazquez comes from her own memoir, The Woman in Battle, published in 1876. Raised in a wealthy family in Cuba and New Orleans, Velazquez eagerly joined the Confederate cause for the adventure. Wearing custom-made wire contraptions to flatten and thicken her feminine figure, she had her hair cut in the fashion of the day and donned men’s attire. Occasionally, she donned a false mustache. Velazquez claimed to have raised her own troop of soldiers and, with them, joined the fighting. After three months she left her battalion to seek work as an independent soldier and later claimed she’d fought at the First Battle of Bull Run, Ball’s Bluff, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh. Her gender was discovered twice, but she persistently reenlisted and later became a spy under the name Alice Williams, working as a double agent for the Confederate Secret Service. Although not mentioned in her memoirs, it is suspected that Velazquez, under her Williams identity, plotted to assassinate President Lincoln. After the war, she lived in New York, toured Europe, then lived for a time in Venezuela, California, Utah, and Texas, and finally in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she disappeared from public record. Although many of her claims are corroborated, there are glaring historical inconsistencies. Many of the aspects of her personality and story were offensive to Victorian sensibilities, and she was widely condemned.

  Maria Lewis, a.k.a. George Harris: Lewis’s story is the one with which I took the most liberties. She likely did not serve as early in the war as I have included her here, and likely did not serve time in a Confederate prison in Alabama where I have her encountering Emily. In reality, not much is known about Lewis other than that she was an African American woman who passed for a white man and was serving in t
he 8th New York Cavalry when the war ended. Near the end of the war, she was a member of an honor guard who presented the War Department with seventeen captured Confederate battle flags.

  There are hundreds of other women with fascinating experiences who served in the Civil War, but I could not fit them into this story. To learn about them, I urge you to read They Fought Like Demons: Women Soldiers in the Civil War by DeAnne Blanton and Lauren M. Cook.

  Others of Note

  The 9th Indiana Infantry: All movements, camps, and battles of the 9th Indiana as portrayed in this story are accurate. All of the privates of the 9th Indiana are fictional in this story with the exception of Ambrose Bierce. The officers, however, were the names of the men who actually served.

  Reading Group Guide

  1. A major theme of the story explores the female soldier’s experience. Did any of these women’s experiences surprise you? If you have military experience, what are some challenges, prejudices, abuses, etc. that you experienced as a female military member or witnessed by other women in the military?

  2. Emily enlisted so she could be with her brother as well as for the adventure. Willie enlisted as a means of financial support. Neither were sexually or romantically motivated, yet women discovered in Union or Confederate ranks were usually accused of such. Why do you think this was? Has this changed in society and/or the military today?

  3. Emily lived in a state that declared it illegal for black people to live, work, or even visit. (Article 13 of Indiana’s 1851 Constitution: “No negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the State, after the adoption of this Constitution.”) Do you think this helped or hindered her understanding of slavery and the growth of her abolitionist beliefs? Do you see any correlation between this lack of exposure to people of a different race and how we still experience racism today?

  4. Opening all military jobs to women in recent years has started the debate on whether women should be included in any future drafts/conscriptions. What do you think?

  5. The epigraph at the beginning of the book reads “Home isn’t where our house is, but wherever we are understood.” Emily’s home was in Indiana, yet it stopped being the place where people truly knew her. Larkin grew up in Seattle but chose to go home to her grandmother’s house in Woodinville because that’s where she’d feel best loved. What does home mean to you? Where is your “home”? Why?

  6. Through most of the story, Emily’s family is made up of her brother and Willie. For Larkin, it is her grandmother and cousins. Both women have other family members, but they feel emotionally disconnected from them. Who do you consider your true family, no matter if they are actual family? What is it about these people that you love so much?

  7. There are people still today who don’t believe the Civil War was about slavery. What do you think, and why?

  8. Were you surprised to learn that so many women disguised themselves as men to fight in the Civil War? Had you heard about any before reading this book? Did you look up any online while reading? Share what you know or learned with the group.

  9. Was it a surprise to you to learn that black men were not allowed to join the Union army until 1863? That they were segregated from white soldiers and led exclusively by white officers? That they were not paid the same wages as white soldiers until June 1864? That, if caught by Confederate forces, they were usually brutally killed and never taken prisoner? Do you think the war might have ended sooner if any of these facts were different?

  10. PTSD, while certainly discussed in relation to veterans, can also arise in people who have never served in the military. Even children can suffer from PTSD. Some known causes are sexual, physical, or emotional abuse; a natural disaster; a car accident; a long-term illness; etc. Do you have personal experience with PTSD (yourself or a loved one) that you can share with the group?

  11. Did the information in the story about the bacha posh of Afghanistan surprise you? Are there any similar practices in your culture where a female takes on the appearance and social expectations of a male? Why is the practice accepted in some cultures and not in others? Is it different if the decision is that of the child rather than the parents?

  12. Emily’s diary directly influenced Sarah’s decision to join the military. Imagine one of your ancestors left a diary detailing his or her experiences during an interesting time in history. What would you do with that information? Share with the group what you already know about your ancestor and the time he or she lived. How might learning more about this ancestor’s experiences through a diary affect you?

  13. After Emily’s story ends, her granddaughter makes an entry in her diary that gives some clues to what happened to Emily and the children. What do you think their lives were like living on the prairie? What, especially, do you think life was like for Gabriel as a cattle rancher when there were likely very few others who looked like him?

  14. Do you now think differently about women serving in the military? What are some actions you can take to support female veterans and show your appreciation for their service?

  A Conversation with the Author

  The main characters in Today We Go Home served in the military. Did you ever serve?

  As a kid, I didn’t think anyone in my family had ever served in the military, because it was never discussed. Only later did I learn that my father served in the National Guard. I grew up thinking that only boys served in the military, so it never crossed my mind as an option for me. But, even if I had wanted to serve, I would not have qualified, since I am totally blind in my left eye.

  What inspired the story? How did you discover that women served in battle in the Civil War?

  As I was searching for new story ideas, I did an online search for strong women in history and got a result of several names, three of which were women who disguised themselves as men to fight in the Civil War. This was the first time I had ever heard that any women had been in battle during that war, and I was fascinated to read these women’s stories. This led to books, articles, and anything else I could find on the subject, and it wasn’t long before I knew I had to write about these brave women. One thing that really frustrated me in my research was learning that Victorian sensibilities twisted these women’s service into something somehow shameful, and I knew I had to set the record straight. Also, right about the time I was discovering this history, I was following with great interest the political and social discussions about the changing policies regarding women in today’s militaries, and I thought it would be interesting to see how a present-day female soldier might be impacted by learning about her Civil War sisters in arms and how their experiences were similar or dissimilar to her own.

  What research did you do to bring this novel to life? Did you visit any Civil War sites?

  Coming from a place of very little knowledge about the military, I had a steep learning curve. I read dozens of books about today’s military, especially women in the military. I also read dozens of books about the Civil War and about a handful of books (all I could find) on women who fought in those battles. Once I knew Larkin would have served in Afghanistan and befriended an Afghan girl, I also read a number of books on women in Afghanistan. Clearly, I did a lot of reading! Oh, and I mustn’t forget all the videos and documentaries I watched on Netflix and YouTube on various subjects having to do with the Civil War, the war in Afghanistan, and the U.S. military.

  Beyond that, my family and I took a weeklong trip to Tennessee, where we spent a day walking in the steps of my characters on the Shiloh Battlefield, as well as visiting other Civil War and antebellum sites around Nashville. I visited the Tennessee State Capitol building on the day before Thanksgiving (not smart planning on my part) to discover that the information desk was not staffed. Fortunately, the state troopers on duty were incredibly knowledgeable about the history of the building and were very helpful in answering my questions. Our day in Nashville also included a visit to the Tennessee State Museum an
d hours of wandering the streets with me trying to imagine it as it was in 1862.

  As for other research, I live in Woodinville, Washington, so the present-day setting did not pose too many challenges. Larkin’s PTSD did, however, send me to more reading (books, articles, websites…). I was very lucky to find several people, including veterans, mentioned in the acknowledgments who were so generous with their time and knowledge and who answered all my random questions. I owe a lot to each of those individuals.

  How long did it take you to write Today We Go Home?

  It is sometimes difficult to quantify how long it takes to write a book because I spend so much time researching a vague plot or character idea before I ever put words to paper. I am also a plotter, which means the bulk of my research and story plotting is done before I ever type Chapter One. In general, I developed the idea for the story while concurrently doing research on the topics and themes for about one year. Writing the first draft took me four months, followed by roughly seven months of revisions and edits (with some breaks for holidays and travel). All together, that adds up to about two years.

  How did you choose the settings: Woodinville, Washington; Stampers Creek, Indiana; and the movements of the 9th Indiana Infantry?

  For me, setting is very important, and I spend a lot of time thinking about how the setting impacts the characters. Because this book was so research-heavy for me, I decided to set the present-day story in the town where I live: Woodinville, Washington. As for Stampers Creek, Indiana, I found the tiny town (which really isn’t a town anymore) on my family tree many generations back, and I wanted to learn more about it. I make a point to follow my curiosity, and it always leads to fascinating discoveries. Because Emily came from Indiana, I looked up Indiana regiments and found that the 9th Indiana Infantry was the first regiment to leave for battle and they were present at the Battle of Shiloh, which clinched the deal for me.