Honoring Those Who Were Really There (Swell Time Blog Tour)

This tour for Swell Time for a Swing Dance has been a blast so far! Lots of fun posts about the 1940s and Cindy Vincent's newest cozy mystery. (You can catch up on the tour schedule HERE.) Today, though, we're taking a more serious turn with a post honoring those who served in World War II.

I'm so glad Cindy has a heart for our nation's veterans and has made space for us today to remember their sacrifices. I was privileged to attend a memorial service at Arlington National Cemetery in 2010 for a WWII flight crew that included my great-uncle (the remains of their plane went undiscovered until recent years)—and I was incredibly touched by the experience. My posts and video slideshows from the trip can be found HERE and HERE.

We'd love for you to share your own stories in the comments section! And now, here's Cindy...

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Honoring Those Who Were Really There

By Cindy Vincent

It’s time to honor the generation who lived and fought during WWII, from the frontlines to the homefront. And with this post, I’m asking for your participation. I’d like you to share the names of any family members, or other people you might know of, who served in the military or played a role in the war effort in some way. Please tell us a little bit about them. This may require a phone call or two to find out if Grandma or Grandpa, or even Great-Grandma or Great-Grandpa, played a role in fighting for freedom. Whatever they did, please honor them by sharing their stories.

Tom Brokaw referred to the WWII generation as being “The Greatest Generation.” And with good reason. So many of them sacrificed their very lives to battle the evil trying to take over the world. Much of our military at the time was comprised of “Citizen Soldiers,” people who simply gave up or took leave from their regular jobs to enlist in the military, in one form or another. But even those who stayed stateside still endured plenty.

An elderly friend of mine comes to mind. She lived on a family farm and was just fourteen years old when her brothers and her father all enlisted and went to war. That left her and her mother to run the farm when they went away. So at the tender young age of fourteen, my friend was left to run the tractor and was given the responsibility for plowing, planting, and harvesting the crops. Could you imagine doing such a thing at that age?

When I was in my twenties, I had the great privilege of working with plenty of WWII vets in a skilled care nursing home. Their stories and their attitudes have stayed with me all these years. At the time we went to war, the United States military was only ranked number eighteen in the world—not exactly a superpower. Yet from what I heard from the people I met, Americans went into the war believing that we would win. That optimism and high morale got them through a lot. I also heard the phrase, “We didn’t start this war, but we’ll put an end to it.”

Now I’d like to share the story of my husband’s Aunt Jean Hixson. She had always wanted to fly and got her pilot’s license when she was only eighteen. When the war came along, there was a shortage of male pilots, so a program was started to train women as military pilots. So Jean, along with 25,000 other women, applied to become a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilot). Only 1,830 women were accepted, and Jean made the cut. She was also one of only 1,074 who completed the training. From there, she went to work with whatever assignment she was given. The WASPs were excluded from combat, but she ferried planes between manufacturers and Air Force bases, including overseas transports. And she towed targets for live gunnery practice. She was one gutsy girl!

Here’s her official WASP photo:

Remember, she was barely in her twenties at the time. And here she is doing a preflight:

And finally, here she is with some of her colleagues after flying a twin-engine B-25 bomber (far right). She was an Engineering Test Pilot for this aircraft.

So that’s my tribute to a few members of the Greatest Generation. I hope you’ll join me in sharing whatever family photos and stories you can dig up!

And my thanks go to Amber, for hosting me here today. We’ve worked on many blog tours together, and it’s always a joy to work with her! I look forward to our next one!

Amber: Thank you so much for sharing these amazing stories with us, Cindy! It's always a pleasure to host you and to tour your books together. :)

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Learn more about this book tour (and a special giveaway) HERE.

Don't forget to grab your FREE Kindle copy of Cindy's latest, 

Swell Time for a Swing Dance!

What I Wish Romance Writers Knew About the Military (Guest Post)

In honor of Veterans' Day, today's guest is Vince Mooney, who has some wonderful advice to share with anyone interested in writing military romance (or anyone who just wants to learn more about how the military works!).

Meet Vince: "Born in Long Island, New York, have lived in New Jersey, Connecticut, Arizona, California, and Oklahoma. Lived three years in Italy and Germany while in USAF.(Air Police: K-9 section). Now live in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Married after whirlwind romance to same wife for over 30 years. Currently run my own real estate school in Oklahoma. Like to study foreign languages for a few months just to see how they work. Also like Latin and giving speeches. I’ve taught Philosophy, Advertising, Property Management, and many real estate subjects at the University, Community College, and Technical School level. Now writing non-fiction book on the Romance genre. I was trained to be a philosopher and history teacher but have worked mostly in advertising, marketing, and real estate."

You can learn more about Vince at his blog Philosophy of Romance.

Welcome, Vince!

What I Wish Romance Writers Knew About the Military

It can be very difficult for me to read a military romance because there are sometimes enough mistakes to repeatedly pull me out of the story. This does not have to be the case. I’ve read many military romances by Maureen Child with complete satisfaction. She must have a very good military fact checker. But then, even a good military fact checker will usually only catch mistakes. He won’t suggest the kind of additions that should also be in the story if it is to be true to life.

Below are ten suggestions for writing better military romances as seen from a veteran’s point of view. One caveat: veterans were in the service at different times. Things change. Ranks change. The writer should check everything out first to make sure her facts are true for the same time period she is writing about. (Ranks may have been different during WWII, for example.)

1. Get the ranks right. I read one romance where the author thought a sergeant major outranked a Captain. She had the Captain jump up and salute the sergeant. This just destroys the writer’s credibility.

Here is where you can check ranks.

2. Get the time-in-grade right. Make sure the character has a rank that is appropriate for his age and/or time in the military. I’ve seen heroes with ranks so low for their time in the service that they must have been real screw-up’s who were busted a few times. This was not the author’s intention. (I couldn’t help thinking: what a loser that hero must be.)

Here is where you can get an idea of Army time-in-grade requirements before being promoted to the next rank.

You can find other sites for Navy and Air Force. Remember: some services do not have some ranks. I only saw one Warrant Office my whole time in the Air Force. I don’t believe there are any left.

3. Put military ‘annoyances’ into the story. I’ve read a whole series of military romances where you would swear the Airman had civilian jobs. They’d go to work like they were going to a civilian office. They would take days off or afternoons off as they needed for their personal reasons. That’s not military life.

I’d like to see some things like: having to go to commander’s call once a month (this is a major meeting of the troops often in a movie theater where films are shown and the concerns of the commander are given.) If this meeting was from 9 am to 12 pm and you just worked the 11 pm to 8 am shift, you still had to go. (Make sure they are still doing this at the time your story takes place. Make sure they call it Commander’s Call in the service you are writing about. They may do it on the internet at this point.)

Troops also have to take their exercise tests each year (this could be more often now). Another ‘hot issue’ that comes up a few times a year is who is going to be promoted and how will they react? (I’ve seen airman who were so mad they were not promoted that they went around kicking holes in the walls.) I don’t think I’ve ever seen troops looking at the posted promotion lists in a romance. This is a big deal. If your story spans a full year, this would have come up in real life.

There are also medical exams and shots to take as well as qualifying on the rifle range. There are inspections and sometimes the Inspector General flies in to check the post out. These inspections are supposed to be a surprise but we always knew when it was going to happen. Air Police pretty much knew what was going on.

Don’t forget the dreaded alerts. These are mission exercises where a war situation is simulated. The whole base would be called out to battle stations. You could be asleep in the middle of the night after having worked the 4 pm to 11 pm shift and you still had to get up and put in at least another 8 hours. Alerts are a major annoyance at any time. If you were just leaving the base to start your 30-day leave they can be a disaster. Even the officers would tell the troops: “If you are off duty, get off of the base. Go somewhere. Don’t stick around here.”

4. Consider describing the colorful patches on the uniform of your hero or heroine.

For example, if you have an Air Force Pararescue member, check out what the patch looks like here.

Soldiers and airman are proud of their units. I was in the Air Police K-9 corps and we had a patch we were very proud of.

See some here.

5. Have some saluting going on every once in a while to give the story a military flavor. I’ve read military romances where I don’t believe there was even one salute in the whole story.

6. Have some complaining going on in the background. This is just normal. “There’s the right way and there’s the Army way.”

7. Remember: personnel rotate every few years. Don’t have people on the post who have had the same military position for ten years. Troops are rotated every few years so they can get a fresh start every so often. Even a bad commander, who you can’t stand, may be gone in a year or two or you might be going to a new base in a few months yourself. This rotation makes it easier to put up with things that you would otherwise consider to be intolerable if you knew things would never change.

8. Troops who vote will often use absentee ballots.

9. There is usually some talk about getting out of the service or re-upping. “He’s a lifer” is often said about a career solider. Use a little slang like, RHIP: rank has its privilege. This is used quite often.

10. Talk about benefits and education. There are bonuses to re-up and money to pay for part of college tuition. Your hero could be going to college in the military. It could be a reason why he will not leave the service.

Use only a little of the above suggestions.

In no way would I suggest that the above is a checklist a writer must compete when writing a military story. Most romance readers are woman and most women have not been in the military. A writer does not have to do any of things I recommend above. I realize that the romance is the central focus of the story. However, if some of the above items are included in the story, then the story will seem more real and the reader will get an insight into military life that she did not have before reading the story.

One more thing: being late to work is being AWOL. Don’t have your service people coming late to work like it wasn’t a big deal. This does drive me crazy.

Vince
USAF, TAC 17th AF
1963 to 1967 K-9

Amber's Parting Comments: Thank you so much for the helpful information, Vince! And thank you for your service to our country. May we honor our military men and women this day and every day for the sacrifices they make or have made on our behalf.

Veterans Day

Before I left for college, I usually went to a Veterans Day service in my home county with my family. While I'm sad that I can't attend the service this year, I am thankful for the opportunity to honor veterans in even just a small way here at "Seasons of Humility":

Thank you, Grandpa, for serving our country in the Merchant Marines during the Korean War. Thank you for always reminding me of the phrase "freedom is not free," and thank you for your sacrifices that helped make that phrase so much more than mere words.


Thank you, Daddy, for serving our country in so many ways, including serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War. You are a hero to so many people, but especially to me.


Thank you to all those who are serving or have served in the United States military. I can't even begin to comprehend all of the sacrifices you have made, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart for protecting our freedom. And please remember: you are never forgotten.

Welcome Autumn (with Giveaway)!

Happy autumn, everyone! I'd like to start this post with the first two stanzas of the poem I wrote entitled "Seasons of Humility" (where the title of this blog came from):

All that remains of a broken dream:
Shattered leaves strewn on the ground.
Once so whole, so vibrant, so green,
Faintly glowing without a sound
As darkness surrounds.

Just dead gold and red left on the tracks
And flying by the window in the wind.
Words that say, "No more lookin' back,"
But turn around and it's there again:
A plea to send.

(To read the whole poem, click the tab above called "Seasons of Humility.")

About half of the poem centers on "autumn." In the seasons of humility, autumn is the hardest time to go through. It represents the seasons in our lives when we are desperately clinging to our own way, aching as we refuse to seek God's will and submit to His plan. We have so many selfish desires, and we have so many ideas on what we think would be best for us.

It's also the time in our lives when everything seems to fall apart. Our dreams fall and fade away, and we don't see how we can ever have any hope again. And we stare at those "shattered leaves," unwilling to deal with the heartache of surrendering to God and thereby failing to see the possibility of spring.

We all go through this over and over, as regular and visible as the change in seasons in the world around us. I'm struggling with it even now--that longing to hold onto what I think is the best for me. I was consumed yesterday with thoughts of my future, and at one point last night I decided to look at the "Careers" pages on some Christian publishers websites to see if they had any internship information up yet. And that's when I came across it: a job description that broke my heart. It seemed so perfect--a job as a publicist, coordinating author interviews and blog tours (etc.) and maybe even getting to travel. The job called for those who had certain majors, English being among them.

I cried.

I cried because I knew that I still had another two years or more of schooling, and that job most likely wouldn't still be open by the time I was ready. I was already really emotional yesterday, and that revelation was the last straw. I'm so, so thankful that I was able to call my mom. She told me she would pray for me, and she reminded me that I would be able to do whatever it was God wanted me to do. And she urged me to pray. What a comfort! I cried and poured out my heart, and I was reminded that the Lord does indeed have a plan for my life. I can see only bits and pieces right now, as my passions are being revealed like different artifacts at an archaeological dig--not all at once, but slowly being unearthed and coming together.

I know I won't understand it all now. God's perspective is so far above mine, and I can trust Him. I'm learning more and more about who God has made me to be, and I'm excited to see what He has in store . . . what He will do with all these little odds and ends that make up the things I love to do.

One of those things I've really grown to love is getting to know military men and women, their stories, and ways that I can encourage them. I'm so excited about the new turn "Mondays for the Military" is taking on my blog! I have met someone just recently who said he was willing to be featured on my blog for "Mondays for the Military," and I've been contacting the Coast Guard in my home county, as well.

Which leads me to the explanation of the header picture this season. This was a picture I took when I was in Washington D.C. this summer of the Vietnam Women's Memorial. That particular memorial is so deeply moving, and it was one I used at the end of one of the videos of pictures I compiled from the trip. I confess that one of the first things that drew me when I was trying out different pictures was how well this fit with the color scheme. I know it sounds shallow, but I really think that the somber tone of the picture contrasts well with the brighter background, and it really evokes the emotions that are part of this season of humility.

But most important is what the picture and the memorial itself stand for. On my last "Monday for the Military" post, Julia wrote (in regards to "meeting" military men and women on my blog):

"I would love the opportunity to encourage and to know how to pray for them. There are so many that have sacrificed so much. I was just thinking it so fits your blog because of the sacrifices."

How true! Humility is all about sacrifices, and the military is such a profound example of that. This picture represent something so powerful, I can't describe it. But I do think that we can indeed learn from and be moved by its message.


Well, I've really written a lot for today! I hope it wasn't too overwhelming; there was just a lot I wanted to talk about regarding autumn. I do want to add that there will be a new addition to the weekly schedule called "Fall Fridays," which will continue this sort of theme--talking about the literal season of fall as well as that particular season of humility. I hope you'll be able to join me for those days!

Also, be sure and check out the "Coming Soon" feature in the sidebar! I'm really excited about "Bluegrass Festival" weekend, and I have a couple of guests lined up for that. Plus, bluegrass just fits so well with the idea of harvest festivals and the like!

If you've read this far, thank you! I really appreciate your time. And to celebrate this new season (and to thank you for reading so much!), I thought it would be fun to do another giveaway! I mentioned this book last week for "Mystery Week," and I would like to give one of you a chance to read it. If you would like a chance to win my gently used copy of Under the Cajun Moon, here are the rules:

• Leave a comment saying you would like to be entered, along with your e-mail address.
• This giveaway is open to U.S. and Canadian residents only.
• Entries will be accepted through Thursday, September 30. A winner will be drawn on Friday, October 1.
• You can get 2 extra entries by leaving a comment on the first "Fall Friday" post! *This will go up on Friday, September 24.*
  
• You do not have to be a follower to enter, but feel free to become a follower if you would like to!

Here's a description of the book from the author's website: "What Secrets Can Be Found by the Light of the Cajun Moon?

New Orleans may be the "Big Easy," but nothing about it was ever easy for international business etiquette expert Chloe Ledet. She moved away years ago, leaving her parents and their famous French Quarter restaurant behind. But when she hears that her father has been shot, she races home to be by his side and to handle his affairs—only to learn a long-hidden secret that changes everything she knew to be true about herself and her family.

Framed for murder, Chloe and a handsome Cajun stranger must search for a priceless treasure, one whose roots weave through the very history of Louisiana itself. But can Chloe depend on the mysterious man leading her on this cat-and-mouse chase into the heart of Cajun country? Or by trusting him, has she gone from the frying pan into the fire?

Following up on her bestselling Gothic thriller, Whispers of the Bayou, and Amish romantic suspense, Shadows of Lancaster County, Mindy Starns Clark offers another exciting standalone novel, one full of Cajun mystery, hidden dangers, and the glow of God's unending grace."

Note: The picture at the top of this post, along with the two new pictures in the sidebar, are ones I took on a nature trail here at Corban. Many of the fall pictures I'll be using in the near future will be from that same nature trail. It's lovely!

Monday for the Military

The United States military is such a wonderful example of honor and sacrifice. Throughout the years, throughout all of the wars the United States has been in, the military has fought for freedom--for the people who they loved and the people who loved them.

From World War II (which my great uncle Robert died in), to the Korean War ("The Forgotten War" which my grandfather was in), to the Vietnam War (which my father was in)--I am reminded of the lives that have been lost, the lives that have been saved, and the love that has been shown. I'm so proud of my family, both those members which have been in the military and those members which have had to stay at home and let go of loved ones.

And now we are part of a new generation. As a young adult, I have friends and acquaintances that have recently joined the U.S. military. From people I knew in martial arts classes, to one of my good friends and neighbor, along with his older brother (who both joined the Marines), I have seen people go off to bootcamp and off to war, ready and willing to make sacrifices for their country and demonstrate courage.

Today let us think of all those we know who are in the military, who are veterans of the military, and who have had to stay at home and watch others go as part of the military. May we pray for them and thank them for all they have done and will do.

Above and Beyond

My dad told me that the following phrase is used at military award services to describe heroism:

"Above and beyond the call of duty."

This is what the government, and two people in particular, did for me and my family. They went "above and beyond the call of duty," and we will be forever grateful to them for their service to us and to our country in general.

Both Sergeant Davis and Sergeant Glaspie helped my family through our time in Washington D.C., taking care of all of our needs and showing us care and kindness. Below are pictures of Sergeant Davis and Sergeant Glaspie (helping my aunt Donna in the limo):



I cannot begin to express my thankfulness to them both, and especially to Sergeant Davis for not only being an amazing example to me, but also for being an amazing friend.

And now for you, my readers, I have one request to make. If you have not already done so, please look at all of my posts for this trip to Washington D.C. (Go to the Labels section in the sidebar, click "Washington D.C.," and start reading the posts from the bottom, working your way up.) It will take some time, but these are some of the most important posts I have ever (or will ever) put together on this blog, particularly those posts with the videos.

To Sergeant Davis, Sergeant Glaspie, and all those in the United States military:

Thank you for going "above and beyond the call of duty." Your sacrifices will be remembered forever.