Jessica Scott's Blog, page 15

Readiness at Risk: Proposed Changes to Military Medical Care

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There’s been a lot of traffic the past few days about the proposed changes to military retirement. I’ve been sitting on this post for a while because, well, don’t blog/tweet while angry. Because the fundamental underly question that this commission is trying to answer is the wrong question. They are asking how do we make the army less expensive when the real question they need to be asking is how do we improve the Army’s readiness.

There are real challenges facing the military in managing personnel issues and I’m a fan of getting creative with fixing them. But I am not a fan of transferring financial risk to the individuals in the name of allegedly saving money – and it’s not even that much money. I’m not a fan of designing a system based on “the individual knows what’s best for them” then allowing predators to rob them blind and trust me, this will happen. It already is (for profit schools being in the Army ed centers for one but that’s another post entirely).

If we’re going to design changes to the military compensation system, then we need to figure out how to make the system work harder for readiness of the army. We need to consider how these systems will work in the context of the war in 2005 or during the Surge. How does this proposed system make sure that we recruit and retain the best during those periods? Because if these proposals don’t address times like that, then we are directly impacting national security with these changes.

I’m probably going to break this down over a couple of posts but for now, let’s tackle the first elephant in the room: changes to Tricare.

Lord knows I’ve had my share of complaints about Tricare (and in all honesty, it’s been damn good insurance for my family for the most part). But despite it being not perfect, it still meets the general requirements of making sure soldiers are ready to deploy.

So let’s say we let a soldier opt out of his or her military health care and go to his or her spouse’s insurance. Great, right? Everyone wins. The Army no longer has to fund expensive medical facilities and individuals get to pick providers that are best for them. But how exactly does this enable commanders to track medical readiness? There’s this little thing called HIPPA and well, off post doctors can be quite strict about enforcing it. So while commanders currently have the ability to call up the doc and find out what medications Private Snuffy is taking, under this proposal, commanders will have no legal right or basis to access this information. You want to hold commanders accountable when a soldier ODs on their medication but this is taking away the one (very imperfect) tool we have for tracking it. Exactly how are commanders going to know what’s going on with their soldiers? I’m also pretty sure you can forget about getting off post doctors to update MEDPROS.

Which brings me to my next issue with readiness: the copay good idea fairy. I’m not morally opposed to copays in principle provided they have a catastrophic cap that’s really low and severely restricted as far as debt collection goes. Insurance exists for emergencies. Copays sound good on paper until you’ve got a $100,000 emergency room visit and your copay is 5% of that. And that’s for things which are emergencies and do not require chronic care. Let’s say you have a child who falls off their bunk bed and gets airlifted to a children’s hospital an hour away, and then subsequently spends three days in intensive care. If there’s a copay and no cap, well, you’ve just saddled a soldier with a massive potential debt. Not really doing much for improving readiness there, are we?

And what happens when there’s a copay for an annual physical and the soldier simply cannot or will not pay for the doctor’s visit? Commanders already have their hands full getting soldiers green on MEDPROS. Now we’re going to add in the additional layer of bureaucracy that forces commanders to argue with insurance companies to get their joes to be green on all their shots? What about shots and immunizations? And how are you going to prevent soldiers from showing up at SRP the day they’re supposed to deploy only to find out that they’re being treated off post for a condition that prevents them from getting on that plane? The chain of command had zero visibility on this issue because there is no mechanism to ensure they can get visibility on this issue.

I don’t see how transferring service members to civilian insurance programs is going to increase medical readiness unless these are Cadillac plans that reduce the friction of going to the doctors and require by law that these agencies must communicate with military commanders.

None of these arguments suggest that military medical care isn’t without problems. Fort Hood went through a massive overhaul of medical care while I was there and part of that was because military commanders were able to apply strategic pressure and get the medical system to do what commanders needed it to do: get soldiers ready to deploy. And this took years to implement. Taking this ability away from commanders may be fine in a peacetime army but we’re not a peacetime army. We’ve still got almost 5000 troops on the ground in Iraq and significantly more than that in Afghanistan. That doesn’t account for troops around the globe on various contingency operations.

Additionally, when service members are wounded, the bureaucracy is already bad enough. Let’s not forget how bad our wounded vets were treated when they were sent home. Remember the scandal at Walter Reed The scandals at the WTUs? How does civilian insurance fix these problems?

If the proposed changes to TRICARE give soldiers better access to care and improves readiness, then I’m all for them. But they don’t. They simply add another layer of bureaucracy making the already intensely complex system more complex. They transfer cost and risk to the individual soldier and take away command influence that provides oversight to an imperfect system.

More individual risk does not sound like improved readiness to me. I’d love to be wrong about this, though.

Before I Fall Excerpt

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My newsletter went out today but in case you missed it, it has a two chapter preview of my new book BEFORE I FALL.

I love this book so so much. I hope y’all will go with me as I explore a new genre. But don’t worry. There are more contemporary romances about soldiers coming home from war in the works. I’m spinning off my Coming Home series into a new series called HOMEFRONT. Sign up for my newsletter to make sure you get the news when it’s going to be available!

Anyway, back to Noah and Beth. Here’s the blurb for BEFORE I FALL.

You can also read the sample on your kindle or iBooks/Nook/Kobo by downloading it directly from my site.

Stay focused. Get a job. Save her father’s life.

Beth Lamont knows far too much about the harsh realities of life her gilded classmates have only read about in class. She’ll do whatever it takes to take care of her father, even if that means tutoring a guy like Noah – a guy who represents everything she hates about the war, soldiers and what the Army has done to her family.

Noah Warren doesn’t know how to be a student. All he knows is war. But he’s going to college now to fulfill a promise and he doesn’t break his promises. Except he doesn’t count on his tutor being drop dead gorgeous and distracting as hell. One look at Beth threatens to unravel the careful lies Noah has constructed around him.

A simple arrangement turns into something neither of them can deny. And a war that neither of them can forget could destroy them both.

PREORDER for .99 at iBooks | Amazon | Kobo | Barnes & Noble

Chapter One

Beth

My dad has good days and bad. The good days are awesome. When he’s awake and he’s pretending to cook breakfast and I’m pretending to eat it. It’s a joke between us that he burns water. But that’s okay.

On the good days, I humor him. Because for those brief interludes, I have my dad back.

The not so good days, like today, are more common. Days when he can’t get out of bed without my help.

I bring him his medication. I know exactly how much he takes and how often.

And I know exactly when he runs out.

I’ve gotten better about keeping up with his appointments so he doesn’t, but the faceless bastards at the VA cancel more than they keep. But what can we do? He can’t get private insurance with his health and because someone decided that his back wasn’t entirely service related, he doesn’t have a high enough disability rating to qualify for automatic care. So we wait for them to fit him in and when we can’t, we go to the emergency room and the bills pile up. Because despite him not being able to move on the bad days, his back pain treatments are elective.

Bastards.

So I juggle phone calls to the docs and try to keep us above water.

I leave his phone by his bed and make sure it’s plugged in to charge before I head to school. He’s got water and the pills he’ll need when he finally comes out of the fog. Our tiny house is only a mile from campus. Not in the best part of town but not the worst either. I’ve got an hour before class, which means I need to hustle. Thankfully, it’s not terribly hot today so I won’t arrive on campus a sweating, soggy mess. That always makes a good impression especially at a wealthy southern school like this one.

I make it to campus with twenty minutes to spare and check my email on the campus Wi-Fi. I can’t check it at the house — internet is a luxury we can’t afford. If I’m lucky, my neighbor’s signal sometimes bleeds over into our house. Most of the time, though, I’m not that lucky. Which is fine. Except for days like this where there’s a note from my professor asking me to come by her office before class.

Professor Blake is terrifying to those who don’t know her. She’s so damn smart it’s scary, and she doesn’t let any of us get away with not speaking up in class. Sit up straight. Speak loudly. She’s harder on the girls, too. Some of the underclassmen complain that she’s being unfair. I don’t complain though. I know she’s doing it for a reason.

“You got my note just in time,” she says. Her tortoise shell glasses reflect the florescent light, and I can’t see her eyes.

“Yes, ma’am.” She’s told me not to call her ma’am but it slips out anyway. I can’t help it. Thankfully, she doesn’t push the issue.

“I have a job for you.”

“Sure.” A job meant extra money on the side. Money that I could use to get my dad his medications. Or you know, buy food. Little things, you know? It’s hard as hell to do stats when your stomach is rumbling. “What does it entail?”

“Tutoring. Business statistics.”

“I hear a but in there.”

“He’s a former soldier.”

Once, when my mom first left us, I couldn’t wake my dad up. My blood pounded so loud in my ears that I could hardly hear. That’s how I feel now. Professor Blake knows how I feel about the war, about soldiers. I can’t deal with all the hoah chest beating bullshit. Not with my dad and everything the war has done to him.

“Before you say no, hear me out. Noah has some very well placed friends that want him very much to succeed here. He’s got a ticket into the business school graduate program, but only if he gets through stats.”

I’m having a hard time breathing. I can’t do this. But the idea of extra money, just a little. It’s a strong motivator when you don’t have it. Principles are for people who can afford them. “So why me?”

“Because you’ve got the best head for stats I’ve seen in a long time, and I’ve seen you explain things to the underclassmen in ways that make sense to them. You can translate.”

“There’s no one else?” I hate that I need this job.

Professor Blake removes her glasses with a quiet sigh. “Our school is very pro-military, Beth.”

She’s right. That’s the only reason I was able to get in. This is one of the Southern Ivies. A top school in the southeast that I have no business being at except for my dad who knew the dean of the law school from his time in the army. I hate the war and everything it’s done to my family. But I wouldn’t be where I am today if my dad hadn’t gone to war and sacrificed everything to make sure I had a future outside of our crappy little place outside of Fort Benning. There are things worse than death and my dad lives with them every day.

I will not let him down.

“Okay. When do I start?”

She hands me a slip of paper. It’s yellow and has her letterhead at the top in neat, formal block letters. “Here’s his information. Make contact and see what his schedule is.” She places her glasses back on and just like that I’m dismissed.

Blake is not a warm woman, but I wouldn’t have made it through my first semester at this school. If not for her and my friend Abby, I would have left from the sheer overwhelming force of being surrounded by money and wealth and all the intangibles that came along with it. I did not belong here but because of Professor Blake, I hadn’t quit.

So if I need to tutor some blockhead soldier to make the powers that be happy then so be it. Graduating from this program is my one chance to take care of my dad and I will not fail.

Noah

I hate being on campus. I feel old. Which isn’t entirely logical because I’m only a few years older than the kids plugged in and tuned out around me. Part of me envies them. The casual nonchalance as they stroll from class to class, listening to music without a care in the world.

It feels surreal. Like a dream that I’m going to wake up from any minute now and find that I’m still in Iraq with LT and the guys. A few months ago, I was patrolling a shithole town in the middle of Iraq where we had no official boots on the ground and now I’m here. I feel like I’ve been ripped out of my normal.

Hell, I don’t even know what to wear to class. This is not a problem I’ve had for the last four years.

I erred on the side of caution — khakis and a button down polo. I hope I don’t look like a fucking douchebag. LT would be proud of me. I think. But he’s not here to tell me what to do, and I’m so far out of my fucking league it’s not even funny.

I almost grin at the note. LT is still looking after me. His parents are both academics, and it is because of him that I am even here. I told him there was no fucking way I was going to make it into the business school because math was basically a foreign language to me.

My phone vibrates in my pocket, distracting me from the fact that my happy ass is lost on campus. Kind of hard to navigate when the terrain is buildings and mopeds as opposed to burned out city streets and destroyed mosques.

Stats tutor contact info: Beth Lamont. Email her, don’t text.

Apparently, LT was serious about making sure I didn’t fail. Class hadn’t even started yet, and there I was with my very own tutor. I was paying for it out of pocket. There were limits to how much pride I could swallow. It was bad enough that I wanted to put on my ruck and get the hell out of this place.

Half the students looked like they’d turn sixteen shades of purple if I said the wrong thing. Like look out, here’s the crazy ass veteran, one bad day away from shooting the place up. The other half probably expected the former soldier to speak in broken English and be barely literate. Douchebags. Need to get working on that whole cussing thing, too. Couldn’t be swearing like I was back with the guys or calling my classmates names. Not if I wanted to fit in.

I’m not sure about this. Not any of it. I never figured I was the college type — at least not this kind of college.

I tap out an email to the tutor and ask when she’s available to meet. The response comes back quickly. A surprise, really. I can’t tell you how many emails I sent trying to get my schedule fixed and nothing. Silence. Hell, the idea of actually responding to someone seems foreign. I had to physically go to the registrar’s office to get a simple question answered about a form. No one would answer a damn email. Sometimes, I think they’d be more comfortable with carrier pigeons. Or not having to interact at all. I can’t imagine what my old platoon would do to this place.

Noon at The Grind.

Which is about as useful information as giving me directions in Arabic because I have no idea a) what The Grind is or b) where it might be.

I respond to her email and tell her that.

Library coffee shop. Central campus.

Okay then. This ought to be interesting.

I head to my first class. Business stats. Great. Guess I’ll get my head wrapped around it before I meet the tutor. That should be fun.

I didn’t think that fun and statistics going in the same sentence but whatever. It was a required course, so I guess that’s where I was going to be.

My hands start sweating the minute I step into the classroom. Hello school anxiety. Fuck, I forgot how much I hate school. I’m at the back of the room, the wall behind me where I can see the doors and windows. I hate the idea of someone coming in behind me. Call it PTSD or whatever, but I hate not being able to see who’s coming or going.

I reach into my backpack and pull out a small pill bottle. My anxiety is tripping at a double time, and I’m going to have a goddamned heart attack at this point.

I hate the pills more than I hate being in the classroom again, but there’s not much I can do about it. Not if I want to do this right.

And LT would pretty much haunt me if I fuck this up.

I choke down the bitter pill and pull out my notebook as the rest of the class filters in.

I flip to the back of the notebook and start taking notes. Observations. Old habit from Iraq. Keeps me sane, I guess.

The females have some kind of religious objection to pants. Yoga pants might as well be full on burkhas. I’ve seen actual tights being worn as outer garments and no one bats an eye. It feels strange seeing so much flesh after being in Iraq where the only flesh you saw was…

Well, wasn’t that a happy fucking thought.

Jesus. I scrub my hands over my face. Need to put that shit aside, a.s.a.p.

The professor comes in, and I immediately turn my attention to the front of the classroom. She looks stern today, but I’m pretty sure that’s a front. She’s got to look mean in front of these young kids. She’s nothing like she was when we talked about enrollment before I started. She was one of the few people who did respond to emails at this place.

“Good morning. I’m Professor Blake, and this is my TA Beth Lamont. If you have problems or issues, go through her. She speaks for me and has my full faith and confidence. If you want to pass this class, pay attention because she knows this information inside and out.”

Beth Lamont. Hello, tutor.

I lose the rest of whatever Professor Blake has to say. Because Beth Lamont is like some kind of stats goddess. Add in that she’s drop dead smoking hot, but it’s her eyes that grab hold of me. Piercing green and intense. She looks at me, and I can feel my entire body standing at the position of attention. It’s been a long time since a woman made me stand up and take notice. And I’m supposed to focus on stats around her? I’d be lucky to remember how to write my name in crayons around her.

I am completely fucked.

Chapter Two

Beth

It doesn’t take me long to figure out who Noah Warren is. He’s a little bit older than the rest of the fresh faced underclassmen I’ve gotten used to. I’m not even twenty-one but I feel ancient these days. I was up late last night, worrying about my dad.

I can feel him watching me as I hand out the syllabus and the first class notes. My hackles are up — he’s staring and being rude. I don’t tolerate this from the jocks but right then, I’m stuck. The rest of the class is focused on Professor Blake, but not our soldier. Oh no, he’s being such a stereotype it’s not even funny. Staring. Not even trying to be slick about it like the football player in the front of the class room who’s trying to catch a glimpse at my tits when I lean down to pass the papers out.

Instead, our soldier just leans back, nonchalant like he owns the place. Like the whole world should bend over and kiss his ass because he’s defending our freedom. Well, I know all about that, and the price is too goddamned high.

And wow, how is that for bitterness and angst on a Monday morning. I need to get my shit together. I haven’t even spoken to him and I’m already tarring and feathering him. Not going to be very productive for our tutoring relationship if I hate him before we even get started.

I take a deep breath and hand him the syllabus and first lecture worksheet.

I imagine he’s figured out that I’m his tutor.

I turn back and head down the stairs to my desk in the front as Professor Blake drops her bombshell on the class.

“There will be no computer use in this class. You may use laptops during lab when Beth is instructing because there will be practical applications. But during lecture, you will not use computers. If your phones go off, you can expect to be docked participation points, and those are a significant portion of your grade.”

There was the requisite crying and wailing and gnashing of the teeth. I remember my first time I heard of Professor Blake’s no computer rule. I thought it was draconian and complete bullshit. And then I realized she was right — I learned better by writing things down. Especially the stats stuff.

I look up at Noah. He’s watching the class now. He’s scowling. He looks like he might frown a lot. He looks…harder than the rest of the class. There are angles to his cheeks and shadows beneath his eyes. His dark hair is shorter than most and he damn sure doesn’t have that crazy ass swoop thing that so many of the guys are doing these days.

Everything about him radiates soldier. I wonder if he knows how intimidating he looks. And then I immediately wonder why the hell I care what he thinks.

I’m going to be his tutor not his shrink.

He shifts and his eyes collide with mine. Something tightens in the vicinity of my belly. It’s not fear. Soldiers don’t scare me, not even ones who look like they were forged in fire like Noah.

No, it’s something else. Something tight and tense and distinctly distracting. I’m not in the mood for my hormones to overwhelm my common sense.

I stomp on the feeling viciously.

I’m staring at him, now. I’m deliberately trying to look confident and confrontational. Men like Noah don’t respect weakness. Show a moment’s hesitation and the next thing you know they’ve got your ass pinned in a corner trying to grab your tits.

He lifts one brow in response. I have no idea how to read that reaction.

Noah

I had to swallow my pride and ask some perky blond directions to the joint. I hadn’t expected Valley Girl air headedness but then again, I didn’t really know what I expected. I managed to interpret the directions between a few giggles and several likes and ahs and ums. I imagined her briefing my CO and almost smiled at the train wreck it would be. We had a lieutenant like her once. She was in the intelligence shop and she might have been the smartest lieutenant in the brigade, but the way she talked made everyone think she was a complete space cadet.

She’d said like one too many times during a briefing to the division commander and yeah, well, last I heard, she’d been in charge of keeping the latrines cleaned down in Kuwait. Which wasn’t fair but then again, what in life was? Guess the meat eaters in the brigade hadn’t wanted listen to the Valley Girl give them intelligence reports on what the Kurdish Pesh and ISIS were up to at any given point in time. My cup of coffee from The Grind isn’t terrible. It certainly isn’t Green Bean coffee but it’s a passable second place. Green Bean had enough caffeine in it to keep you up for two days straight. This stuff…it’s softer, I guess. Smoother? I’m not really sure. It isn’t bad. Just not what I am used to. Nothing here is.

I wonder if there is any way to run down to Bragg and get some of the hard stuff. Hell, I am considering chewing on coffee beans at this point. Anything to clear the fog in my brain. But I need the fog to keep the anxiety at bay, so I guess I am fucked there, too. Guess I could start getting used to the place. No better place to start with the coffee, I guess.

The Grind is busy. Small, low tables are crowded with laptops and books and students all looking intently at their work. It’s like a morgue in here. Everyone is hyper focused. Don’t these people know how to have a good time? Relax a little bit? Hell, there were no seats anywhere. The Grind was apparently a popular, if silent, place.

The tutor walks in at exactly twelve fifty eight. Two minutes to spare.

“You’re not late.” I’m mildly shocked.

She did that eyebrow thing again, and I have to admit, on her it is pretty fucking sexy. “I tend to be punctual. It’s a life skill.”

“Kitty has claws,” I say.

She stiffens. Apparently, the joke fell flat. Guess I was going to work on that.

“Let’s get something straight, shall we? My name is Beth, and I’m going to tutor you in business stats. We are not going to be friends or fuck buddies or anything else you might think of. I’m not kitty or any other pet name. I’m here to get a degree not a husband.”

My not strong enough coffee burns my tongue as her words sink in. She’s damn sure prickly all right. I can’t decide if I admire her spine or if it’s unnecessary. Hell, it isn’t like I tried to grab her ass or asked her to suck my dick.

The coffee slides down my throat. “Glad we cleared that up,” I say instead. “I wasn’t sure if blow jobs came with the tutoring.”

She grinds her teeth. There isn’t much by way of sense of humor in the tutor. She has a no nonsense look about her. Her dark blond hair is drawn tight to her neck, and I can’t figure out if she is naturally flawless or if she is just damn good with makeup.

There is a freshness to her though that isn’t something I am used to either. Enlisted women, the few I’d been around, either try way too hard with too much black eyeliner downrange or aren’t interested in men beyond the buddy level.

But this academic woman is a new species entirely for me, and as our standoff continues, I realize I have no idea what the rules of engagement are with someone like her. At least not beyond her name is not Kitty and she’s not here for a husband. Those she made pretty clear.

She is fucking stunning and I suddenly can’t talk.

She clears her throat. “So are we going to stand here and continue to stare at each other, or are we going to get to work? I have somewhere to be in two hours.”

I motion toward the library. “Lead the way.”

Beth

He’s watching my ass as I walk in front of him. He’s just the type who would do something like that. The blow job comment had caught me completely off guard. I hate that. I always think of smart ass comebacks fifteen minutes too late.

So now I am even more irritated than I had been when he’d been staring in class. What the hell had Professor Blake been thinking?

I lead us to a small table out of the way where there wouldn’t be a lot of disruption. Stats is one of those things that takes a lot of concentration. At least it had for me until I learned the language.

I pull out the worksheet from class. Homework and lessons. “So let’s get the business stuff out of the way,” I say. I hate the tone in my voice. I’m not normally a ball busting bitch, but he’s set me off and if being cold and curt is the only way to keep him in line then so be it. “I’d like to be paid each meeting. Cash.”

“What’s your rate?”

I sit back. How the hell did that question catch me off guard? I don’t know. I work part-time at the country club next to campus, but the tips are hit or miss. The thing about the other half? Some of them are stingier than others. Most of the time, I make okay tips. It’s enough to keep the lights on most of the time. When it wasn’t, I tried not to be bitter about how they didn’t need the money like I did.

But I just smiled and took their orders.

I’m stuck. Noah is not my first tutoring job but my other jobs were paid by the university. I have no idea how much to charge for freelance work.

“Fifty dollars an hour, three times a week,” he offers abruptly.

I cover my shock with my hand. “Huh?”

“Fifty dollars an hour. I saw a sign in the common area charging that much for Spanish. Figure stats should be at least that much, right?

My voice is stuck somewhere in the bottom of my chest. Fifty bucks an hour is a lot of groceries and medication. It feels wrong taking that kind of money, even from Mr. Does the Tutoring Come with Blowjobs.

“Will that be a problem?”

I shake my head. “No. That’s fine.” There’s a stack of bills that need to be paid. The electricity is a week overdue. Like I said, the country club wasn’t the most reliable income. I’m counting on tips tonight to make a payment tomorrow to keep them from shutting it off. Again. Between that and the money from tutoring — I could keep the lights on. I can feel my face burning hot. I turn away, digging into my backpack to keep him from seeing my humiliation, not wanting him to see my relief.

“Same time, same place? Monday, Wednesday and Friday?” My computer flickers to life.

“Works for me. How much pain should I be prepared for?” He sounds worried. He should. Professor Blake is one of the top in her field, and that’s no small feat considering she came up at a time when women were still blazing trails in the business world.

“Depends on if you do the work or not,” I say. I can’t quite bring myself to offer him comfort. I’m still irritated by the blowjob comment. “So let’s get started.” I lean over the worksheet. “What questions do you have from class today?”

I look up to find him watching me. There’s something in his eyes that tugs at me. I don’t want to be tugged at.

He looks away. He’s strangling that poor pen in his hands. Clearly, I’ve struck a nerve with my question.

I wish I didn’t remember how that felt. The lost sensation of not having a clue what I was doing. I didn’t even know what questions to ask.

I don’t want to feel anything charitable toward him, but there’s something about the way he shifts. Something that makes him vulnerable.

I run my tongue over my teeth. This isn’t going well. “Okay look. We’ll start with the basics, okay?”

I open my laptop to the lecture notes.

He finally notices my computer. “I haven’t seen one of the black MacBooks in years,” he says.

He’s not being a prick, but I bristle anyway. “It might be old but she’s never failed me.”

“It can run stats software? Isn’t that pretty intense processor wise?”

I don’t feel like telling him that to run said stats program, I have to shut down every other program and clear the cache. I don’t want to admit that there’s just no money to buy a new computer. I can’t even finance one because I don’t have the credit for it.

Business school is about looking the part as much as it is knowing the game so none of those words are going to leave my lips.

“It gets the job done,” I say. “Now, the first lecture.”

“I get everything about what stats is supposed to do. I got lost somewhere around regression.”

“Don’t worry about regression right now. We’re going to focus on understanding what we’re looking at first up. Basic concepts.”

I look over at him. He’s scowling at the paper. I can see tiny flecks of blue and gold in his green eyes. He drags one hand through his short dark hair and leans his forward. He’s practically radiating tension, and I can feel it infecting me.

Damn it, I don’t give a shit about his anxiety. I don’t care.

“So the normal distribution is?”

I take a deep breath. This stuff I know. I draw the standard bell shaped curve on his paper. “The normal distribution says that any results are normally…”

Noah

She knows her stuff. She relaxes when she starts talking about confidence intervals and normal distributions. Hell, I can’t even spell normal distribution.

But she has a way of making things make sense.

And her confidence isn’t scary so much as it is really fucking attractive.

I’m watching her lips move and I swear to God I’m trying to pay attention, but my brain decides to take a detour into not stats-ville. She’s got a great mouth. It’s a little too wide, and she has a tendency to chew on the inside of her lip when she’s focusing.

I look down because I don’t want her to catch me not paying attention. I need to understand this stuff, not stare at her like a lovesick private.

I’m focusing on confidence intervals when something dings on her computer. She frowns and opens her email. It’s angled away so I can’t look over her shoulder, but something is clearly wrong. A flush creeps up her neck. She grinds her teeth when she’s irritated. I tend to notice that in other people. I do the same thing when the anxiety starts taking hold. At least when it starts. It graduates quickly beyond teeth grinding into paralyzing.

I glance at my watch. It’s almost time for her to go. I have no idea how I’m going to get my homework done, but I’ll figure it out later. I’m meeting some of the guys from the veterans group on campus at some place called Baywater Inn. Because of course LT put me in touch with these guys, too.

But watching her, something is clearly wrong. I want to ask, but given how our history isn’t exactly on the confide-your-darkest-secrets level, I don’t.

She snaps her laptop closed and sighs. “I’ve got to run and make a phone call. Are you set for your assignment for lab?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

Her lips press into a flat line. “You can always look it up online.”

“Sure thing.”

She’s distracted now. Not paying attention. I watch her move. There’s an edge to her seriousness now. A tension in the long lines of her neck. A strand of hair fell free from the knot and brushes her temple. I want to tuck it back into place but I’m pretty sure if I tried it, I’d be rewarded with a knee in the balls. And I like them where they are, thanks. I’d come too close to losing them to risk them now.

I pull out my wallet and hand her two twenties and a ten. She hesitates then offers the ten back. “We didn’t do the full hour.”I refuse the money. “Keep it. Obviously you’ve got something to take care of. Don’t worry about it.”

She sucks in a deep breath like she’s going to argue but then clamps her mouth shut. “Thank you.”

She didn’t choke on it, but it’s a close thing. I am suddenly deeply curious about what has gotten her all wound up in such a short amount of time.

Maybe I’ll get a chance to ask her some day.

But I definitely have the impression that Beth Lamont isn’t into warm cuddles and hugs. She strikes me as independent and tough.

And I admire the hell out of that attitude, even as she scares the shit out of me with how smart she is.

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Finding Your Voice

I’ve been “officially” writing since 2007. And holy hell does that feel like a long time. When I was first starting out, I thought I just need an editor to tell me what this story is and help me fix it.

The problem is, once I got an editor, we couldn’t agree on what the story was that I was trying to tell. I didn’t trust myself enough to know that this isn’t my story and I kept trying to write the story that she wanted.

It didn’t work. I damn near quit writing over that book and when I say I almost quit, I’m not talking about oh poor me. I’m talking about a year of back and forth revisions, missed deadlines and a whole lot of emotional angst because clearly, I had no idea what I was doing. Obviously, I had no business writing if I couldn’t figure out what my editor wanted, right?

It took me sending out an SOS to a very close friend of mine who happens to be a tremendously talented editor. She gave me a week of one on one time and we fixed the book. To this day, I am grateful to her for not only helping me fix that particular book but for showing me that yes, I actually do know how to tell a story.

When I started working with my next traditional editor, I nearly wept when I received her revision letter because she understood the story I was trying to tell. The key difference in the three editorial relationships is that in one, I didn’t know what story I was trying to tell. I was trying to write what I thought an editor wanted. In the other two, I wrote the story I wanted to tell and they helped me make it shine.

So my point there is not to bash the editor but to say that because I didn’t know the story I wanted to tell, I invariably complicated the problem – for over a year.

When new writers are starting out, I feel like there comes a point when you find that story that has your voice. You know it because it clicks and it feels right.

I’ve gone through a very similar and emotionally traumatizing experience in grad school. Not only have I had zero confidence in the paper I’ve been trying to write but I’ve let every feedback I’ve received change the paper up completely. I haven’t figured out the vision for that paper and thus, the writing of it has become an unmitigated disaster.

But at least now I can recognize that’s what’s going on. It’s not that I can’t write – though there can be some argument to be made that my academic writing is definitely not where it should be. It’s that I haven’t figured out what story I’m trying to tell in that paper. Once I do that, the rest of it will follow. Of that, I am confident.

I’m finishing up a book this week that I literally started writing last week. Of course, it needs a good edit but I can honestly say that this book is one where I have found my voice. The story and the characters have come to me in a pretty heavy flood of words and I couldn’t be happier with the way this story is turning out.

I consistently go through bouts where I’m sure I’m done, that I’ve got no more stories to tell. I’m coming off one of those waves right now where I haven’t had a new idea in months. And then this book happens.

More to follow as I get it prepped and ready to go. It’s a little different than what I’ve written in the past but I really, really love this story. I think it’s true to my voice and at the end of the day, it’s all I as an author can really do.

Have a wonderful New Year!

xoxo

Jess

The Wisdom of Lieutenants

If you’re just tuning in, over on Tom Rick’s Best Defense, 1LT Max Lujan wrote a piece entitled: One Way To Improve the Army: Make Company Grade Officers Do Their Jobs.

His post was not well received for a couple of reasons. First, by writing about his current unit, under his real name, he basically outed peers to his left and right as well as his senior leaders. He called out his battalion level leadership among other things for failing to correct deficiencies within it. He mentioned specific incidents that can easily be traced back to the individuals involved and at least once incident that could potentially involve a criminal investigation. Second, the proposed five platforms he recommends installing in all junior officers aren’t something you can insert over time.

So rather than rehash what has been done masterfully by El Snarkistani and a particularly insightful post about second chances by Private Snuffy as well as a really great question about whether we’re actually contributing to the organization or if we’re just bitching by Power Point Sapper, I’m going to talk about some of the hard lessons I learned as a lieutenant about needs vs wants.

Full disclosure, I cut my teeth as an officer in First Cav so I’m familiar with the territory that Lujan is writing in. I was not a brand new lieutenant, though. I had been a sergeant first class in my prior service days so I had a whole bunch of unlearning to do as well as fresh learning. It remains one of my most formative military experiences and I for one am grateful to the captains in the S3 in particular who didn’t cut me any slack but didn’t let me step on my crank, either.

LT Lujan wants officers to be held accountable. He wants to see people punished for screwing up. He’s even holding people accountable for things that inherently come with experience and sometimes done. Social skills are not something everyone is gifted with. However, he didn’t criticize his peers social skills. What he described was someone being nervous. “Bumbling 22 year old” is how I would actually describe a lot of 2LTs. It’s pretty much a dick move to call someone out on a public forum for being nervous briefing their entire platoon. Experience will make someone better at briefings. Only maturity can maybe make you less of a dick. Maybe instead of calling his peer out in public, he could have pulled him to the side and said hey, want to practice that briefing before hand? Build the team instead of tearing it down.

But that said, I’ve been in a position where I badly wanted someone held accountable. I didn’t want this person just fired. I wanted public humiliation. I wanted tarring and feathering.

What I could not understand – and it took me years to finally figure it out with the help of a couple of those captains I mentioned above- was why this individual did not get fired. Why wasn’t the relief for cause OER done and believe me, the cause was substantial. Incompetence of the highest mark and it was not due to inexperience.

The lesson I learned in that incident was two fold. First, you can’t fire everyone. As much as I despise many things that Rumsfeld did as Sec Def, one thing he said is absolutely true: you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you have. What LT Lujan is doing is spending his time wishing he was in some high speed unit where everyone is superman and no one ever screws up. Well, those units don’t exist. So you can piss and moan about the unit you’re in or you can figure out how to make it better. I have a hard time seeing how his post on The Best Defense is contributing to the fight. I can easily see, however, how it’s not.

The second lesson is between wants and needs. Remember that incompetent individual I mentioned a few minutes ago? What I wanted was firing. What I needed was someone to get in there that knew their job. I got what I needed – it was infinitely more important to get that duty position filled with someone who knew what the hell they were doing. That one person was a single point of failure. Getting the job done was more important than my petty desire to see this person fired. And? It took about three years but that person is no longer in the military. The system takes time but it does, I believe, a decent job of weeding out the incompetent.

Sadly, our system does not do a good job of weeding out toxicity. We tend to reward guys and gals who will be dicks to make the mission happen. I’ve served in units where the commander didn’t believe in second chances. Once failed pt test and you were done. That didn’t engender much loyalty to the officers or the unit. We have a harder time capturing guys who may not set their buddies up for failure but certainly don’t go out of their way to make sure that someone who is struggling gets a hand.

It must be nice to know you’ve never screwed up. That you’ll never fail a pt test and that you’ve never once been in a position where your integrity is tested or that you’ve never been nervous before an important briefing. But like that high speed unit where no one ever screws up, it’s been my experience (and with 19+ years in service, I actually get to use that expression) that those people are the first ones begging for a second chance when they finally do step in it.

I’ll end on this note. LT is right – there is an problem in the officer corps but it’s not what he mentions. We have blind spots and this lieutenant pointed out some of them, rightly or wrongly. But the problem isn’t that he pointed out the blind spots. It’s how he went about it.

He’s new to the army (no West Point doesn’t count) and he clearly doesn’t know how it works otherwise he never would have written that post like he did. Or he would have gotten feedback from trusted individuals to make it less likely that he was about to step in his crank. Or better yet, he would have made an office call with his commander and asked “sir, I have some real questions about things that I see in this unit and I really need to understand what the decision making process is here.” An office call would have demonstrated a maturity, a professionalism and a willingness to learn that I did not see in this young lieutenant’s post.

Failing to recognize his own blind spots is a major shortcoming but like many life lessons, it comes with experience. Learning humility, though, that takes someone willing to hold a mirror up and take a good hard look.

Why We Should Stop Fighting about Merry Christmas

I’m probably not the person who should be writing this post. There is a short list of things that I get violently angry about and Christmas, well, Christmas isn’t one of them. I’m a lapsed Catholic who freely engages in that whole freedom of conscience thing. Like I pretty much ignore the Church on a few issues that other folks (in my family for instance) take pretty seriously. But I’m also a sociologist who studies the sacred and morality and this whole war on Christmas thing serves a sociological purpose, belief it or not.

First, the belief that Christmas is under attach creates a feeling of solidarity among a segment of the population that sees (correctly or not) that their way of life is under attack. It doesn’t matter if anyone is actually attacking anyone else. The belief that “they” are preventing people from practicing their religious freedom is real and this belief translates into action and into a sense of solidarity with others who feel the same way. In a world where people are feeling their sense of community slip away (again real or not) this sense of solidarity is powerful. It’s why people listen to Rachel Maddow and Bill O’Reily. Both shows preach to the choir so to speak, reinforcing worldviews about the other side and making people feel like they belong, that their views are justified and that they are not alone.

Second, this sense of solidarity should not be underestimated. Don’t say it’s just sad and lonely people who watch these shows. Don’t say it’s just a bunch of disgruntled white folks bitching about the fake war on Christmas. To dismiss this sense of solidarity is to deny the power of belonging – and humans are wired to connect. We need it. We are born needing it. In an experiment on baby monkeys (because doing this to human babies would be beyond unethically wrong and to be honest, I’m not entirely comfortable doing this to baby monkeys either), baby monkeys had to choose between a wire mother who offered food and a cloth mother who offered no food but offered snuggles and comfort. The baby monkeys would rather starve than be denied affection and belonging. Don’t dismiss people’s need to feel like they belong to something bigger than themselves.

So for those of us who don’t get up in arms about Season’s Greetings or Happy Holidays, remember that some people take this very seriously. It is vital to their sense of identity that they are allowed to say Merry Christmas just like it’s vital to my sense of identity to acknowledge that hey, I have Jewish friends and Muslim friends and Atheist friends and not everyone celebrates Christmas. Some people look at the season to be with family or to exchange gifts. I’m okay with that. I don’t have to force that on anyone else.

So if someone says Merry Christmas to me, I’m just going to return the greeting however I’m comfortable. If there’s no fight, no push back, then maybe, we can wind down the rhetoric and start actually listening to each other. There are tremendously important issues that we need to be talking to one another about and if we fight over something like whether to say Merry Christmas vs Happy Holidays, we only make the divide larger and the conversations less likely.

You’re not going to change anyone’s mind by arguing.

However you celebrate the season, make it a good one.

Announcing My Partnership with BitLit Media

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Hi Gang!

I’m super excited to share this announcement with you. A few months ago, I saw Joe Hill on Twitter talking about this start up company Bitlit. It allows you to get the ebook for the corresponding print book if you already own the print.

As an author, I get why publishers don’t want to bundle print and ebooks. There are readers like me who, if we love the digital book, will also buy the print book thus creating two revenue streams for publishers. Plus there are technical and I suspect some legal challenges to bundling that the major publishers haven’t figured out yet, at least not that I’m tracking.

But I’m also a reader and I know that, especially for nonfiction, I read better on print but take better notes on digital. But there are also authors like Nalini Singh that I just have to have on my keeper shelf but also know I’ll read it faster if I’m on my iPad.

So I’m really excited to tell you that of my indie books currently available in print are now available on Bitlit FOR FREE. If you buy or if you already own the print book for ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU, or either of my nonfiction projects TO IRAQ & BACK or THE LONG WAY HOME, you’ll be able to install the Bitlit app on your smartphone or tablet and get the digital copies for free iOS | google play

Anyway, I’m really excited to offer you something I would really like to see from more publishers. It’s a way for me to say thanks to all the readers out there who have supported me from day one. Of course, the print books are more expensive than a regular paperback b/c they’re print on demand but this way at least, you can get two for one.

The three new books that are coming out early next year will also be part of the bundling program at Bitlit. Once I have more finalized info about them, I’ll definitely shoot a note out here first. But there should be more information very soon after the new year.

Have a wonderful holiday season! However you celebrate yours, make it a good one!

What Does Being a Veteran Mean

I’ve been thinking a lot about Veteran’s Day this year. I’ve spent the last year and some change away from the army attending grad school at Duke and it’s given me a lot of time to think about what it means to have literally taken off my soldier identity and become something else entirely (that’s a completely different post for another time).

I’ve spent a lot of time considering where my writing and my work fits into the broader public narrative about returning veterans. I write about soldiers coming home from war and the challenges we face. But am I contributing to the scarred PTSD narrative out there that is so problematic for a variety of reasons? Or am I informing readers about the complexity of military life and what coming home from war entails?

On the one hand, there are posts like this one at the Washington Post that talks about the perceptions of PTSD among returning veterans is leading to or worsening unemployment among them. Employers are unwilling to hire vets because of perceived problems with PTSD and what that actually means. And when there’s a violent incident somewhere, the veteran community collectively holds its breath that basically can be summed up with “please don’t be a vet” – because the stereotype of violent PTSD has taken hold among the civilian community. We push back against these narratives of the violent veteran while quietly acknowledging amongst ourselves that yeah, some of us have problems but not ALL of us have problems. We’re fine. The cycle of public denial amongst those of us who are fine stands as a defense against the media perception that we’re all one bad mood away from shooting up a mall or punching our loved ones but it does not deny the reality that there are real problems in the force.

On the other hand, there are efforts like the recent video The Wrong Side of Heaven by Five Finger Death Punch. I’m a huge fan of the band and I love that they’re trying to raise awareness of the very real problem of homelessness among veterans. I loved this video and the sentiment behind it and yet, part of it still plays into the narrative of screwed up vet who lost everything because of the war.

The most powerful thing about this video, though, is the end, I think. Not the credits where they list organizations that can help. The most powerful message is at the end where the soldier whose life was saved turns around and lifts his brother up. He’s managed to be okay and he doesn’t walk by his brother in need. He reaches down and lifts him up. They stand together. For me, that is the biggest, most powerful take away from the video.

Going out on a limb, I think that image speaks to a broader sentiment in the veteran community. I suspect that those of us who have come back okay need to present a face of “okay” to the public while at the same time, using the cultural capital that comes from being a veteran to reach down and help our brothers and sisters who may not be okay. This is not pity so much as it is an acknowledgement that everyone needs to take a knee sometime.

All of us came home from war different. Some of us have gone through rough times, others have really been fine. Some of us are struggling. We in the veteran community can acknowledge this struggle without pity – we’ve been there or we know someone who has been there. It’s the reality of the lived experience which makes us push back against external attempts to label us all as poor bastards joined the military because we couldn’t do anything else and well, it’s just so damn sad we’ve abandoned by society. But it’s our sense of belonging to this community that makes us also defend it – to demand better treatment and better programs for our brothers and sisters. To enter government and try to make things better not for us individually but for all of us. To be engaged in raising awareness and standing with those who can no longer stand on their own.

Because I may not put on the uniform every day but being a soldier still defines me. I suspect it always will. But what does that mean and how does that reflect in my actions. Veteran’s Day is a day to remember those who have served. There are many of us trying to figure out how can we still serve.

Remember.

Fundraiser to Support Project Sanctuary

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Help support military families.

This month, in observation of Veterans Day, I’m doing a fundraiser to support Project Sanctuary.

Project Sanctuary is a Colorado based charity that treats the whole family – which I suspect is critical on several levels. Not that there’s anything wrong with having soldier, spouse or military child specific charities – everyone needs their own space. But when someone as part of a family unit is having trouble, the whole family struggles, too.

Another reason why I like Project Sanctuary is that over 80% of the funds raised go directly to support retreat and operations and not to more fundraising. If you’ve ever done investigating into some of the major national charities, there’s massive overhead that goes to raising more money – but sadly this greater amount of money raised doesn’t go to actually the cause the charity supports.

Project Sanctuary supports military families through family based retreats – 6 days in the Colorado mountains, away from cell phones and other distractions. Their website says that 90% of those who have attended retreats are still married.

They also follow up with their families for two years – a really great way to make sure that the families remain in touch with people as they’re moving through difficult periods.

Because I’m a believer in supporting the whole family (and what nascent sociologist wouldn’t be), I’m raising money and awareness this month for Project Sanctuary. I will donate 50% of the net proceeds from the sale of ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU for the month of November to Project Sanctuary.

I’d like to raise 1000$. You may be asking why not just make a cash donation? I’ve already done that but I think this is a great way to raise awareness of a great charity. If you’d like to donate directly, you can learn more about Project Sanctuary here.

You can purchase ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS at ebookstores everywhere.

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All I Want For Christmas Is…an iPad mini?

So if you’ve subscribed to my newsletter (and if you haven’t, what are you waiting for), you know that Patrick and Sam’s novella ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU is out now – a few weeks earlier than originally planned.

And to celebrate my first indie project in over 2 years, I’m giving away an iPad mini because, well, I’m surgically attached to mine, lol and I want to share the love.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Anyway, you can enter the giveaway here because something is wrong with my blog and I can’t get the widget to work.

But in the mean time, here’s an extended look at Chapter One from ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS YOU. I hope you’ll check it out and enjoy!

Chapter One



It was hell getting your heart ripped out right before Christmas.

And no matter how much scotch he threw at the problem, Major Patrick MacLean couldn’t make the bleeding stop.

Sam was gone. And she’d taken Natalie with her.

Patrick knew all the stages of grief—at least a few of them. The anger. The denial. Maybe not in that order, but he knew how to deal with Seriously Bad Shit.

Except that he hadn’t moved—not from the couch or from the bottom of the bottle that he’d crawled into at the start of the holiday half-day schedule.

On the coffee table in front of him, his cell phone vibrated violently.

He blinked rapidly a couple of times. The angry gadget was blurry and out of focus. He was on leave. He didn’t have to answer the damn phone if he didn’t want to.

At least, he didn’t think he did. He was on leave, right? He’d signed out, right? He rubbed his temples, trying to think if he’d called the staff duty. Hell, he couldn’t remember. He groped in the dark for the bottle as the phone went silent.

Except the damn thing started vibrating again.

Someone didn’t know how to take a hint.

He snatched the phone off the table, too irritated to look at the number. “Yeah?”

“Daddy?”

He froze, the haze burning from his brain instantly. The wound Sam had left on his soul ripped open again at the sound of Natalie’s voice. He closed his eyes, fighting to breathe against tightness in his throat. Losing his family was worse, so much worse, than anything Iraq had thrown at him.

“Hey, sugar bear.” He cradled his head in his hands, his heart breaking at the sound of her voice.

Natalie wasn’t his daughter. Not by blood or legal paperwork.

But he was still her daddy. The only daddy she’d ever known, and in his heart, she was his.

She was his family. Sam was his family.

And they were gone. Just. Gone.

He cleared his throat.

“You’re up late,” he managed, hoping she didn’t hear how bad he sounded to his own ears. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“Something’s wrong with Mommy.”

Hello, Captain Obvious. He didn’t say that, though. He wasn’t sure the eight-year-old would appreciate the sarcasm. “Is she hurt?” he asked instead.

“She’s crying all the time. And she doesn’t talk to me.” Her little voice broke. “I don’t know how to make her okay.”

“Are you okay?”

“No.” A tiny, hitched breath. “I want to come home. I want to see you. Mommy… Something is wrong.” A sniff, followed by a muffled sob. “Can you come get me?”

“Honey, you’re all the way in Maine.”

Silence for what felt like an eternity. “Isn’t this why they have airplanes?”

He smiled at the deadpan voice. Nat had been working on her repertoire of smartass skills. Any other time, he would have been so proud. Except that his heart hurt at the sound of her voice.

“I—” His voice locked in his throat.

“Daddy, I’m scared.” Another quiet sniff. “Please come. This was supposed to be our first Christmas together since you and Mommy came home from Iraq.”

Damn. The kid was good at getting what she wanted. He’d told himself that she was too little to remember when he’d kissed her good-bye and gotten on that plane. That she wouldn’t remember the phone calls when she’d cried that she wanted him to come home. That she misted him when she couldn’t say missed right.

That maybe she was too little to notice that her mother had packed them off without so much as saying good-bye.

At some level, he’d rationalized that letting Sam go was the right thing to do. That if she wasn’t happy anymore, it was better that she left before they started hating each other. That things had changed between them, and he should remember the good times.

It was obvious since she’d come home that something was wrong, but he hadn’t pushed. He’d given her space, thinking she needed it to get things sorted in her head.

Except that space, apparently, had been the wrong thing to do.

“Please, Daddy.”

He closed his eyes. And made a decision that was either going to damn him to hell or save the little girl and the family that he loved with all his heart.

It was still dark, the moonlight frozen on the path in front of her. The cold penetrated her bones and seeped into her soul. The only sound on the wooded path was the crunch of her boots on the frozen crust. The air froze in her nose and seared her throat, biting at her cheeks as she walked.

Captain Samantha Egan walked through the Maine woods where she’d grown up and felt like she didn’t belong there anymore. She didn’t belong anywhere. Not at Fort Hood. Not back home.

Everything felt wrong.

And she was cold. But it was more than cold from the temperature. No, it was the cold of something dead in the space where her heart had been. She was more used to the Iraqi heat—even in the dead of what passed for winter there—than the frigid central Maine subarctic temps.

She’d hoped that coming home to Saber Falls might jolt the dead space in her chest back to life. That the darkness would burn away in the bright sunlight sparkling off the frozen trees.

But it hadn’t. She’d been home for a few days, back from the war in Iraq for less than a month, and nothing she did felt right. Not being around Natalie. Not being around her mother or her old friends from high school. Especially not being around friends from high school. She’d tried to stop in and see her friends Garrett and Finn Rierson but her lungs had stopped working before she’d even pulled into the police station where Garrett worked. She’d kept driving, avoiding the reality of seeing them. Avoiding the reality of the loss of her best friend that threatened to cut off her air every time she thought about her. She breathed out as she rounded a bend in the snowmobile trail, turning back toward her mother’s house, trying to ease the automatic tightness in her chest when she thought about Mel.

The hole in her heart was matched by the hole left in their lives from the war.

Nothing felt right but work. Work and being around the soldiers she’d deployed with were the only things that didn’t feel wrong.

Even then, being around the guys from work wasn’t the same now that they were all home. She was the odd woman out as the men went home to their wives and the women went home to their husbands and kids.

She pulled her hat down over her ears, trying to keep out the penetrating cold.

Sam had gone home to her daughter. To the man who’d been a part of her life for the last nine years.

And she’d felt nothing.

No joy at seeing Natalie. No happiness at being with Patrick.

Oh, she’d smiled and said all the right things. But inside, something special was broken. There were no words for the utter lack of any feeling. Everything was mechanical and stilted. Off.

Especially with Patrick.

He was a good man. A man she’d loved with everything she was.

But things weren’t the same anymore. Something had changed during her deployment. She’d stopped calling as much, unable to bear hearing her daughter’s voice on the phone. The pain in her heart when her daughter cried for her ripped out her soul, made her question everything she was doing in the war, in the army.

But it was different with Patrick. She’d stopped calling him, too; not just Natalie. She hadn’t been able to deal with hearing about the homework or dinner or all the other normal things he did while she was deployed. He managed her being gone so much better than she’d done without him.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t deployed, too. She’d been the worried other half on the other side of the world before.

Maybe the war had taken her ability to feel any happiness at all ever again. The deployment …the deployment had broken her ability to feel anything for him, and she couldn’t say why, only that now she looked at him and felt…nothing. She’d hoped, prayed, that seeing him would make her feel again, would breathe life back into the dead spot in her chest.

But that first night home, when he’d slid into the bed next to her, she’d feigned sleep and denied them both. She sucked in a deep breath, letting the cold burn in her lungs until her eyes watered.

He was no warrior saint. What she’d done—or rather what she hadn’t done—had hurt them both. She’d seen his hurt and the anger and frustration just there beneath the surface.

But it hadn’t cracked the frozen glass encasing her heart.

She couldn’t say what had happened to the love she’d felt for him. But after a week of pretending, she’d broken the news.

“I’m going home for Christmas,” she’d said as he’d stripped in the bathroom after PT.

He’d turned slowly, his dark brown eyes filled with expectation and a thousand questions. “Okay?” he’d said cautiously.

“I’m not coming back,” she’d said, her voice as flat as the emotions in her chest.

The veins in his neck had bunched, standing out against his skin. “Back to me or back to the Army?”

She looked away from the penetrating concern in his eyes. Patrick was a good man. A strong man. A man who had loved her daughter and who had loved her.

And she wasn’t capable of loving him back anymore.

It was better to end it now. Cauterize the wound before it festered and grew in hatred and anger. Maybe they could figure out how to be friends.

Maybe someday, when things weren’t all wilted and frayed inside her.

“I’m sorry,” was all she had managed.

Walking through the woods now, she couldn’t say when things had gone wrong. She couldn’t put a mark on the calendar that she could pinpoint and say here’s when things went to shit in her life.

She’d hoped coming home would fix things. That the fog would clear away and she’d feel something again. But the fog was still there.

And it still felt like she was looking at life from very far away.

So she walked. Through the woods as the sun slid higher over the frozen Maine trees and hills, hoping that something would snap her out of it.

There was no reason for her to feel this way.

She’d made it home from the war when others hadn’t. She had a daughter who was healthy and a man who’d taken care of their lives while she was deployed. A career that she was damn good at.

She’d come home.

She just didn’t know what that actually felt like.

She didn’t know if she’d ever feel again.

But she had to keep going. Had to put one foot in front of the other. She just needed to suck it up and snap herself out of it.

Because she had a daughter to raise. And the war was far from over.

For her, it would never be over. The ghosts would be with her, no matter how far she walked or how hard she tried to pretend they weren’t.

She turned down the snowmobile trail toward her mother’s house. Her toes burned from the cold. She needed to get warm. Maybe Mom and Natalie wouldn’t be up yet so she could sit by the fire and just let the heat seep into her bones.

Natalie was an early bird, though. All those mornings of getting up for daycare since she was a baby had set the little bugger’s internal clock for the ass-crack of dawn. Maybe, though, maybe today she’d sleep in.

It was Christmas, right? Miracles could happen.

Sam had promised her a trip to see Santa. Damn, but she didn’t want to drive the hour to Bangor to the mall. She used to love coming home to Central Maine for a visit, but she damn sure hated the thirty-minute drive for the nearest real grocery store or the hour plus to Bangor.

But she’d promised and, well, a promise was a promise.

So if the weather held, she’d bundle her little bear up and head to the mall.

But first she needed to get warm. Badly.

She opened the sliders to her mother’s back door. She’d always loved her mom’s house. The back of the house faced away from the road and civilization in general. It was peaceful.

She kicked the snow off her boots and slid the door shut behind her.

There was movement in the kitchen. The light was on now. Probably Mom. Guess Natalie’s early riser tendencies were genetic. “Mom?”

Silence greeted her question.

She frowned.

Then froze as the shadows near the kitchen sink moved and morphed into the man she’d abandoned.

Patrick stepped into the pale morning light.

“Hi, Sam.”

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Sync ePub on iPad to ibooks on Mac

For the last few moths, I’ve been trying to figure out how to create a single consolidated library of my various ebooks – books bought on nook, ibooks and of course, amazon.

I primarily needed to migrate away from note taking on kindle because the one academic book I took notes on, I cannot get the notes off my kindle app. Trust me, I tried everything to include three days on hold with tech support.

Calibre was the obvious solution to create the single library but how to access it when I was away from my home computer? There were various suggestions (Dear Author has several great posts on it) but none of them seemed to work for me, either because of technical ineptness or other vagaries of computer malfeasance.

So my work around was to add all my ePub files to ibooks manually and sync them all to my iPad.

But (and there is always a but) I ended up having an ePub that I loaded from my shared folder directly into my iPad. Not a big deal, in theory, because it would sync, right?

Not exactly.

So there I was, looking at my notes on Durkheim’s Professional Ethics and Civic Morals. I could search my notes. I could search my bookmarks. But I couldn’t get the book to sync from my iPad to my ibooks library on my MacBook. Was I forever doomed?

Well, for about the last six week, it looked like it. I was annoyed that I’d ended up in the same boat as with kindle or so I thought.

Today, as a last ditch effort, I manually added the ePub file to ibooks on my Mac (I exported my notes just in case, another feature that ibooks has that my kindle app does not). And I hit sync.

And lo and behold, there were my notes in all their searchable, copy and paste glory, miraculously showing up on my MacBook.

Color me happy!

Steps to sync an ePub from iPad to ibooks

On Mac:

Ibooks-> add to library

Plug in iPad.

iTunes ->books -> sync selected: find the recently added book

Sync

The file on your iPad (ibooks) should sync seamlessly to the file now on your ibooks (Mac)

As always, make a back up first! Good luck!