A Veteran's Spirit in Historical Fiction

by Peter Leavell @PeterLeavell

Historical Fiction is a powerful tool to bring the past alive.

How we see the past, how we portray events forever stays with the reader. The responsibility is heavy.

On Veteran’s Day, the celebration is about the soldiers who come home to a hero’s welcome, or return to castigation, or those at duty’s end is filled with a loneliness that cannot be filled and such despair that only a brother or sister in arms can understand. The horrors are forgotten by a nation but live on in the minds of the soldier.

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And what will history say of these men and women who sacrificed time and well-being so that we might stand in fancy suits and long gold chained watches, adjust our glasses and shake our heads and proclaim that, now we see through the lens of history, their cause wasn’t worth the sacrifice?

If only politicians had done…

If these soldiers had been more kind…

If a repressed people had more rights….

And the soldiers march on. And the veteran’s boots gather house dust while he or she agrees,

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disagrees, and screams for understanding.

And still, the veteran glances at the world, closes eyes and sighs and dreams the unholy nightmares of battle, longs for the tedium of the military work, the friendships of the mechanic bay, the base patrol buddies, the well-deserved R & R after truly important slog. Civilian mundane, hourly wages without repercussions for lazy or whining or doomed fellow workers filled with poor choices are no replacement for a tight ship, a clean bunk, a swift justice to the slacker.

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Historical Fiction authors research without end because a veteran’s story deserves to be told. We endlessly explore because our lens through which we see them is distorted, listing to the side by our experiences—our overarching patriotism or unending hatred of war and those who take part.

Historical Fiction authors write perspective. Our ship of characters does not focus unendingly on love, violence, hatred, compassion. To tilt the past with one focus is to drown all the passengers of the past in untruths. So, we focus on one thought.

The spirit of the age.

What was it like to live in the past, why did they live as they did, who were these men and women, when did they find time for romance and families and dreams, where did they serve. How are they doing after service?

And in this, we civilians salute the men and women who offered their time in service to our country. Thank you.

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Saluting the men and women who offered their time in service to our country! 

Honor veterans in your historical fiction novel by capturing the spirit of the age.

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Peter Leavell, a 2007 graduate of Boise State University with a degree in history and currently enrolled in the University's English Lit Graduate program, was the 2011 winner of Christian Writers Guild's Operation First Novel contest, and 2013 Christian Retailing's Best award for First-Time Author. A novelist, blogger, teacher, ghostwriter, jogger, biker, husband and father, Peter and his family live in Boise, Idaho. Learn more about Peter's books, research, and family adventures at www.peterleavell.com.

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Remembering Our Veterans by Writing By Rick Barry

We all love to honor our veterans, and author Rick Barry does it in a unique way. A mighty "thank you" to all like my dad, father-in-law, and husband who served! -- Sandy

Rick: Is Veterans Day just another day on the calendar to you? Or does that holiday evoke the emotions it deserves?

Of course, not every person who enlists in the armed forces of the United States ends up fighting a war. However, each person who has either enlisted or responded to a draft notice understands there is always the chance he or she will become a target. Those who accepted that danger and put on the uniform deserve to be remembered and honored.

One way to honor vets is to ask permission to shake their hand and thank them for serving their country. Other ways include beautifying a deceased vet’s grave, or anonymously paying the tab for a vet eating in a restaurant.

Personally, I like to remember veterans with my keyboard. Ever since 7th grade when I happened to watch the World War II movie The Great Escape, I have read countless true accounts of men and women who found themselves caught up in the conflict. Some stories have happy endings. Many don’t.

When I began writing for publication, I naturally gravitated to events connected to WWII. With the aid of research and imagination, I enjoy cracking open the pages of history and writing articles, short stories, and now novels to keep the sacrifices of “the Greatest Generation” in modern readers’ minds.

My first WWII novel, Gunner’s Run, stars a 19-year-old who accidentally tumbles out the open bomb bay

of a B-24 while on a mission. Thanks to his chest parachute, Jim Yoder survives. But there he is, alone and on foot in the last place he wants to be—Nazi Germany. (Odd events really happened.) That book was first released in 2007, and recently JourneyForth Books reprinted it a third time. I’m thankful for its role in “bringing alive” the dangers of that bygone era for modern readers. (One school teacher told me she reads a chapter of Gunner’s Run a day to her classes to help them picture those events of 70 years ago.)

On September 27 of this year, Kregel released my latest novel, The Methuselah Project, a suspense story about a captured P-47 pilot. Instead of taking Captain Roger Greene to a regular POW camp, his captors use him as a guinea pig in a hush-hush German experiment meant to outlast the war. The story is highly imaginative, the result of my combining genuine history with a huge “What if?” One Amazon reviewer calls it the “ultimate Past Meets Present story.” (Speaking of reviews, I praise God that 95% of reviews for The Methuselah Project fairly glow. Its combination of history, suspense, romance, plus a tinge of speculative truly appeals to a wide range of readers. Hallelujah!)

So, no matter how you personally do it, please pause to remember our nation’s veterans. As the old cliché states, freedom isn’t free. Veterans past and present paid the price for the freedom you and I enjoy today.

Do you have a veteran you'd like to honor today?

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Rick Barry holds a degree in teaching foreign languages, speaks Russian, and has visited Europe more than 50 times in connection with Christian ministries. He has authored over 200 published articles and short stories, plus three novels. A writer with an adventurous spirit, Rick has jumped out of perfectly good airplanes, visited WWII battlefields and cemeteries in France, climbed mountains in Colorado, and explored evacuated buildings in Chernobyl, Ukraine, among other personal adventures. Visit him at...

www.rickcbarry.com
Or at facebook.com/AuthorRickBarry
Or on Twitter (@WriterRickBarry)