Home for Christmas

            When our son, Nick, went into the Army in May, one of the things I thought as I said goodbye to him was that for the first time in his life, he wouldn’t be home for Thanksgiving or Christmas. For some reason, that bothered me more than I thought it would.

            That surprised me, because I’ve never been terribly sentimental about those holidays. When I was a kid, they were often days with obligations, where I couldn’t do what I wanted to or play with my friends. Because of that, the days often felt more like chores than celebrations.

            When I went off to college, the emotional level of the holidays kicked up a notch. Going home then seemed to really mean something and was a way of reconnecting during the period between childhood and adulthood. The difference between home and college provided a yardstick for measuring my progress during that transition.

The Yearly Negotiation

            In 1977, Kathe, my younger sister, and I both got married, and the holidays took on a hitherto unknown dimension. She was living in Seattle, I was living in Santa Cruz, our parents were in Glendale, and the in-laws were in Watsonville and Spokane.

            At that point the holidays got complicated. We would try to get our whole family together for one of the two, and one of us would try to spend the other holiday with mom and dad. That, of course, had to be worked around our spouses’ commitments to their parents, the work schedules of four people and so forth. Planning for the holidays came to seem less and less like a spiritual family bonding experience and more like an acrimonious labor negotiation.

            The parents are all gone now, and the kids are grown up, so it’s a bit simpler. The past few years we’ve either stayed home — Linda, Nick and I — or occasionally gone to Seattle to be with Kathe and her family. It has been considerably more low-stress than before, and there was the certainty that at least our small family would be together.

The Soldier Far Away

            Nick’s going into the Army changed even that dynamic, and we just figured that, buck private as he was, he wouldn’t be able to get time off then. It looked as if, for the first time in 37 years of marriage, it would be just Linda and me for Christmas.

            After basic training at Fort Jackson, S.C., Nick went to Fort Eustis, VA, for advanced training as a helicopter mechanic. If the class had started right away, he would have been done in late October and low man on the totem pole at his new posting after that. But the Army works in mysterious ways.

            It turns out that they didn’t have enough people to start the class right away, so he spent a month at Fort Eustis doing janitorial duty every day, which I’m sure built his character no end. Once training got under way, graduation was set for the day before Thanksgiving.

            Given Linda’s work schedule, flying out then wouldn’t have been feasible. But then the Army struck again. Nick was chosen to stay for additional training on the next generation of Blackhawk helicopters, and his training end date moved to December 14. At that point he’d have two weeks’ leave and wouldn’t need to report to his next post until the first of the year.

            So he got the leave, and he’ll be home for Christmas, arriving late the night of December 18. Given the nature of the Army, it could be his last Christmas home for years, but I’m trying not to think about that. Let’s just enjoy this one.

Wilmington, North Carolina

            If it hadn’t been for Nick joining the Army, Linda and I would probably never have seen Wilmington, North Carolina. But he did, and we did, and we enjoyed the visit very much.

            We learned in early June that when Nick graduated from Army basic training at Fort Jackson, SC, we would be able to drive him to his next posting, which turned out to be at Newport News, VA, a reasonable distance away along I-95. But we didn’t want to be doing just Interstate road food and chain motels by the highway. We were to leave Fort Jackson at noon Thursday and had until 5 p.m. Friday to get Nick to Virginia, so I did some wool-gathering to see if there might be some place we could stay along the Carolina coast Thursday night.

            Wilmington’s not on the coast, though it’s half an hour from several beaches. It’s actually a port town of over 100,000 people on the Cape Fear River, and it has a historic downtown area with a river walk. Sounded good to us, so that’s where we ended up.

Too Much City, Too Little Time

            We arrived late on a hot, humid afternoon (is there any other kind in the Carolinas in July?) and checked into the Best Western downtown on the river. It was a four-story hotel, with a tower that stood alone as a fifth floor. We stayed in the tower suite, which had a living area with sofa bed on the ground floor and a loft a story higher with king bed and stunning views of the river on one side and the city on the other. It cost $168 plus tax for the night.

            Once we’d checked in, Nick wanted to get online and catch up with his email from the last three months (soldiers are offline for basic training). While he was doing that, Linda and I headed south toward the bridge along the river walk. We dropped into a cookware store where there was a back room devoted to Carolina barbecue sauces. We bought a bottle and asked the friendly clerk for a recommendation on a seafood restaurant.

            She suggested Elijah’s, right on the river, and we made our way there. It looked good, and not wanting to do more walking in the heat than we had to, we called Nick and told him to join us.

Dinner by the River

            It was a weeknight, and we were able to get a table outdoors, just a few feet from the river. The food was good, so filled up and happy we walked back to the hotel, stopping at Poodle’s tropical wear store to get a cap for Nick and a T-shirt for me. Just upriver from the hotel, the city had placed a series of stools by the railing at the water’s edge, and after we returned, I sat on one of those and just watched the water flow slowly by for about 20 minutes.

            Coming back, I saw that there was a walkway from the second floor of the hotel to an observation deck built out over the river. I took Linda out there, and we had it to ourselves, watching the sunset from one of its benches and listening to a group of anglers on a nearby pier chaffing each other.

            We enjoyed our all-too-short stay and wished we had another day to explore the town. Two days later, at Raleigh-Durham airport, security confiscated the barbecue sauce for being a bottle that couldn’t travel carry-on. Maybe that was God’s way of telling us we need to go back to Wilmington and put the sauce in checked luggage the next time around.

New Citizen, New Soldier

            Almost every time you do something new, there’s a side benefit in terms of learning something else along the way. It might have nothing to do with what you were doing, but can be kind of neat to know about when you hadn’t before.

            When our son, Nick, graduated from Army basic training at Fort Jackson, SC, two weeks ago, there were a number of announcements on the Fort’s website and Facebook page. One of them, which piqued my interest a bit, was that Family Day activities would begin with a naturalization ceremony.

            Several people responded on Facebook, asking if that was something they had to attend, and one of the officers diplomatically responded that while they were certainly welcome to, it was primarily a ceremony for new soldiers who were also becoming U.S. citizens following completion of basic training. As fate would have it, we got an opportunity to meet one of the new soldier-citizens the next day.

The Private from the Middle East

            In a post last week I noted that the basic training graduation is an event the Army tries to promote these days, and there were several thousand people in the stands at Hilton Field for the ceremony. When it’s over, the new soldiers are marched down to the far end of the field, and the families rush on to it to join them. It’s kind of like the fans storming the football field and tearing down the goalposts after a big win.

            That makes for a lot of bodies you have to work through to get to your soldier, but finally we found Nick in the scrum. After hugs, handshakes and greetings, he told us that he had taken the liberty of offering one of his fellow soldiers, whose family wasn’t present, a ride back to the barracks in our car.

            I won’t be giving out the soldier’s name, but the reason he had no family at the ceremony was that he was from one of the countries in the Middle East where we have lately had a considerable presence. The details were a bit sketchy, and we didn’t press for more, but apparently he had been helping U.S. troops in his country as an interpreter, and with things becoming more unstable, it was getting a bit hot for him back there. An offer to join the Army and study languages looked pretty good, so he took it.

Don’t Put Me on Facebook

            We took the two of them to their barracks (they were in the same modular building) so they could get their gear together and get ready to move on to their next posts for advanced training. Nick went with us to Fort Eustis in Newport News, VA; his friend was off to a posting a couple of thousand miles away, but still closer than his home.

            I asked if I could take a picture of the two of them, and Nick’s friend hesitated for a moment, then said it would be OK as long as I didn’t post the photo on Facebook or elsewhere on the Internet. I promised I wouldn’t and took the picture on my phone, but later deleted it. Why take any chances?

            Nick said two or three people in his platoon had become naturalized citizens at the end of basic training. In addition to his friend who rode to the barracks with us, one was from China, and another from Latin America. It would be interesting to know what their stories were, but their presence certainly adds another dimension to America’s modern Army, about which most of us know very little.

Our Soldier Moves on

            During World War II, millions of Americans served in the armed forces, and it’s unlikely that more than a handful saw a friend or relative (or at least one who was out of uniform) on the day they finished basic training and moved on.

            There were several reasons for that. Travel was more difficult and expensive in those days, for one. But probably the main reason was that it wasn’t regarded as an occasion for celebrating. Almost every man of a certain age went through it, so there was nothing special about it, and the next step for many was going into battle and facing death or dismemberment.

            Times have changed. Serving in the military today isn’t mandatory; it’s a choice. Like all choices, some are made for better reasons than others. But even the young man who got his girlfriend pregnant and is trying to escape the wrath of her parents has easier options than the Army. It’s a serious commitment that entails considerable sacrifice, and the commitment should be honored regardless of the reason for making it.

They Came From All Over

            Because military service is now optional, the services have recognized the public relations value of celebrations. Having spent a number of years doing PR for a living, I know that it’s not all Spin City. In the best sense of the word, it can be an exercise in doing the right thing and making the right gestures, and there’s a personal and social value in doing that.

            Our son, Nick, went into the Army May 6. He’s been in love with flying ever since he was old enough to know it was possible, and is looking at a career in aviation. The Army offered him training as a Blackhawk helicopter mechanic, and he signed up for six years. There are easier ways to get into the business, so I have to admire him for taking this considerably tougher and more dangerous one.

            Before helicopter school, he had to go through infantry basic training, same as every other soldier. So he was sent to Fort Jackson, SC, one of several bases where they do that. The fort history says the site was chosen because of “its year-round temperate climate.” I reflected on that point last Wednesday as I sat in the bleachers at the fort’s Hilton Field for family day ceremonies. Before the thunderstorms arrived in the afternoon, the mercury climbed into the 90s, with stifling humidity.

Private Wallace Carries the Banner

            Linda and I had arrived from Atlanta the day before and were in the bleachers early. Nick was his platoon’s Guide-on, which means he carried a banner behind one of the drill sergeants as his platoon and company marched on to the field. He looked lean, fit, and in command of himself.

            After the family day ceremony Wednesday morning, we got to spend 10 hours with him on base, catching up. He was craving pizza, so we had lunch at a Pizza Hut, then visited the base museum and had a long talk in a shaded pergola by Lake Semmes, the fort’s largest park.

            The following day he graduated, and we drove him to his next posting, at Fort Eustis in Newport News, VA. He was calm, accepting and funny about his new life in the Army, and looking forward to the next assignment. After three wonderful days with him, we came away with the sense that he was feeling good about his decision, which made us feel better, too. We’re glad the Army made a big deal out of the occasion, and provided the chance for us to be with him and see how it’s going.

Delayed Gratification

            This past week I was reminded again of the virtue of patience, and of the fact that it takes people a while to get around to something they’re meaning to do.

            At my Rotary Club meeting on Wednesdays, people frequently get up and pay a “happy fine” to support the club’s community activities. Last week, for instance, I paid such a fine because I was happy that our son, Nick, had called for the first time since he began basic training at Fort Jackson, SC, and that we had actually been able to talk to him. One of the other happy fines that day caught me by surprise.

            One of our longtime members rose to pay a fine for having read and enjoyed my mystery novel, The McHenry Inheritance, and for having enjoyed my use of names drawn from the local community. I even offered to pay his fine, but he insisted.

Good Intentions Take Time

            Until that moment I had forgotten that my fellow Rotarian had mentioned last year that he’d bought the book , then never said any more about it. More than six months passed between his buying it and reading it, but please don’t think I’m complaining. I’m thrilled to death if anybody reads it anytime.

            What I have to remember is that while my book is one of the most important things in my life right now, for everybody else, it’s at best a to-do item. And it can take a long time for a to-do item to rise to the top of the list. If it ever does. When I’m thinking about it rationally, I figure that the best case is that half the people who mean to read the book actually crack it open to the first page and read it all the way through.

            There are authors whose first book meteorically soars to the top of the best-seller lists, but most of us, if we ever succeed, do it in the style of the old-school businessmen who started in the stockroom after getting out of high school and worked their way to the top over decades. In today’s business world, those folks would be passed over for an MBA who would probably make a hash of the job, but that’s another blog.

Authors Who Start in the Stockroom

            The equivalent for an author is slowly building an audience until you hit a tipping point where your books start getting noticed. Most authors begin with a first book that sells a few thousand copies. With luck their second book sells a few thousand more and the third a few thousand more than that. Maybe on the fourth or fifth book, they crack the best-seller list, triggering some more sales for the earlier books and leading to a bigger audience for the next one.

            In other words, what’s your hurry?

            When my book was first published, I moved a lot of copies as free promotional e-books. Then I started wondering why the people who were buying it weren’t reviewing it. In the past couple of months the reviews, generally positive, have been coming in, and people scanning the mystery section at Amazon can see that a dozen people have read and reviewed the book.

            That gives it some credibility with readers who haven’t heard of me (which is nearly all of them), but it doesn’t mean they’re suddenly going to buy the book. A lot of them will check it out several times over a period of months before deciding to plunk down their $2.99. Like everything else, it takes time.

Facebook and Today's Army

                  Not long ago I wrote about the importance, even in our digital age, of old-fashioned snail mail for soldiers, a situation that entered my awareness now that our son, Nick, is in basic training at Fort Jackson, SC.

                  But we’re also becoming aware of the ways in which the Army is using social media to inform, or not inform parents of service men and women. Fort Jackson, for instance, has its own Facebook page, which provides updates on what’s happening at the fort or company level and also posts photos of training activities taken by base personnel.

                  We think one of the pictures had Nick in it, but we couldn’t tell for sure. It didn’t give a full view of the face, and the big caps the soldiers wear also hinder positive identification. Still, it’s kind of neat to be able to keep up with at least officially sanctioned base news, and we’ve really been following, rather than interacting with the page.

How Come He (She) Hasn’t Called?

                  Not everyone has been so reticent. We were told when Nick shipped out that he would get to make one phone call of about two minutes shortly after he arrived safely at Fort Jackson. Owing to the time difference, the call came in at about 3:30 p.m. on our home phone. I work out of a home office and was there to take the call and talk with him, but Linda was at work and never got a chance.

                  Not long after that group of Soldiers in Training arrived at Jackson, the Facebook page lit up with comments from parents who wanted to know why they hadn’t heard from their kid. Like sharks drawn to blood in the water, some of the parents began feeding on each others’ anxieties and it almost seemed that for a while, that was all the Facebook page was about.

                  Finally one of the officers responded to the complaints with an answer that should have been glaringly obvious.

                  Your soldier gets one phone call when he or she arrives at Fort Jackson, the officer wrote. We don’t tell the soldier who to call, and if he or she has a boyfriend or girlfriend, the call might not be to the parents. Q.E.D.

They Oughta Be in Pictures

                  Once training got under way, the Facebook page began blossoming with photos of training activities. It quickly became apparent that some companies had leaders who are social-media savvy and took and posted a lot of photos. Others didn’t.

                  In the past week there’s been another flurry of parent postings with the running theme that the parent in question hasn’t seen any pictures of the family soldier, and what’s going on here. Like the phone call situation, this one started feeding on itself as well.

                  A couple of days ago the battalion commander himself felt the need to respond personally to those posts.

                  Fort Jackson isn’t a photo studio, he said, in essence. It’s an Army basic training facility, and its purpose is to turn young recruits into soldiers who have learned the skills that are necessary to help them have the best chance of surviving a combat situation and fighting properly. And, he added, if certain people don’t let up on this photo question, we will block them from using the Facebook page.

                  Take that. It’s a sign of the times, but at the same time I can’t help shaking my head and thinking that if Dwight Eisenhower had had to deal with this, we’d all be speaking German.

Snail Mail to a Soldier

                  One of the neat things about reading nonfiction is the unexpected stuff you come across. For instance, in Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals, about Lincoln and his cabinet, I learned that Lincoln successfully pressed the U.S. Post Office to dramatically speed up its delivery so that soldiers fighting the war could receive morale-boosting letters from their families and loved ones.

                  For any other president, that would have been the crowning achievement of his administration; for Lincoln, it’s a forgotten footnote. I thought it interesting at the time and made a mental note of it, but never expected that it would come to mean something personal to me.

                  Now that we have a soldier in the family (or more accurately, a soldier in training, since he’s still in basic at Fort Jackson SC), the mail has taken on a new meaning. Soldiers in basic training have next to no access to computers and telephones, so good, old-fashioned snail mail is about their only means of sending and receiving information.

The Letter Written by Hand

                  Apparently mail call, where the sergeant stands in front of the group and calls out the names of those who received a letter that day, is still a big deal, and the Army really encourages families to write to their soldiers. Before Nick shipped out, we made sure he had a good ruled writing pad, an ample supply of envelopes, and a couple of sheets of Forever stamps, so he could write to us as well.

                  Whatever else our son may lack, he at least has a father who’s a professional writer and doesn’t mind firing off a letter — enjoys it, in fact. Linda doesn’t write for a living (unless you count final exams), but she’s also comfortable writing a letter. We’re each trying to write twice a week, staggering the mailings so the letters arrive on different days. Nick’s aunts and friends have also said they’ll write.

                  Back in the Pleistocene, before there was email, I used to write a lot of letters. Mostly I typed them or printed them from a computer. I have a few friends I send long e-mails to, but except for thank-you notes, I hardly ever mail anything handwritten. That’s changing now, because I want the letters I send to Nick to be as personal as possible.

What? You Do Cursive?

                  I have pretty good penmanship, if I do say so myself. And I don’t; bank tellers are always fawning over my handwriting. I’d never have made it as a doctor, but it comes in handy now. Even though he never learned cursive in school, my son should be able to read what I’ve written to him.

                  For the letters to Nick, I bought a couple of types of high-quality off-white paper with matching envelopes. That in itself was a revelation. At the best stationery/office supply store in town, they had only a handful of choices in the section of formal letter-writing paper. After all, who sends letters these days?

                  The letters are written with a Japanese ink-cartridge pen with an old-fashioned nib. Linda got it for me as a wedding anniversary present in March, a few weeks before we learned that Nick was enlisting. It glides over high-quality paper with an effortless smoothness, and I can easily dash off a two-page letter in half an hour. Funny, when I stop to think about it. I’ve been earning a good living as a writer for 40 years but am just now doing my most important work, and I’ll never see a dime in revenue from it. The payoff, however, will be huge.