The Enormous Landscape Surrounding War

Here's a quote from The Honor Was Mine that speaks to the landscape surrounding war. Since I no longer work on military bases, you might think I'm no longer connected to that landscape - but you'd be wrong. I visit that devastating landscape week after week with the combat veterans I still work with . . .

I have never been to war, but I have been in the enormous landscape surrounding war, with soldiers who were boarding planes carrying them into wild chaos, with spouses who were shuddering with fear about who would come home tomorrow—a dreadful, bruised stranger or the sweetheart they’ve been missing.

I wrote my first story like this: Sitting in my hotel room at the end of a very long day, I pulled out my laptop and opened it to a stark blank page. My heart felt tattered with everything I’d seen and heard, so I sat in the soft glow of the desk lamp, writing about a battalion’s grief as they learned one of their soldiers had been killed in combat. There were no hardened warriors that day, just men and women who felt their loss with a raw, stunned vulnerability. I wrote to make room for the next day, which promised to hold more grief-stricken conversations.

You can read so much more when the book comes out, Sept. 6.
The stories combat veterans tell will change your heart . . .

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