The Importance of History
I am enjoying the PBS series, “The Vietnam War,” currently airing. When I first started writing The Last Frontier of the Fading West I began during
World War II
. The story grew organically through that war as it affected average American citizens’ lives and the returning wounded and POW’s, with all their scars. The thread of war wove thru the narrative both as a memory and a current event, ultimately bringing me to
Vietnam
which I never intended to include. But there it was, as my novel progressed from the 40’s thru the 50’s and into the 60’s. I couldn’t write anything about my heroine Jennifer’s life, in the 60’s without writing about Vietnam, pervasive in the life of every American, whether draftee or the parent of a draftee. Whether you were for the war or against the war. It filled our consciousness, ever-present in the media.
In September 1967, I had graduated high school and was about to enter secretarial school, when we learned that two boys—for they were still boys—from the last graduated class, were killed there, one the brother of a classmate and friend of mine. It hit home. Suddenly that faraway foreign place that existed only on the television was in our homes and in our hearts, it was personal.
That personal experience and the anti-war sentiment that grew as the casualties mounted found a voice in my book. It became an underlying theme. War is hell. My heroine railed against war and its stupidity, and as I watched the first episode of this PBS series, I was struck by a Vietnamese man quoted early on, who says something to the effect that in war there are no winners or losers, only destruction. Jennifer would agree with him.
Since beginning the research for my book, I have been enamored with WWII books, and there have been so many really good ones published lately. For some reason, they speak to me. Underlying the story and its characters, regardless of the setting, there are the real people who existed and the events that took place in history. They inform our writing and help to insure history will not be forgotten.
In September 1967, I had graduated high school and was about to enter secretarial school, when we learned that two boys—for they were still boys—from the last graduated class, were killed there, one the brother of a classmate and friend of mine. It hit home. Suddenly that faraway foreign place that existed only on the television was in our homes and in our hearts, it was personal.
That personal experience and the anti-war sentiment that grew as the casualties mounted found a voice in my book. It became an underlying theme. War is hell. My heroine railed against war and its stupidity, and as I watched the first episode of this PBS series, I was struck by a Vietnamese man quoted early on, who says something to the effect that in war there are no winners or losers, only destruction. Jennifer would agree with him.
Since beginning the research for my book, I have been enamored with WWII books, and there have been so many really good ones published lately. For some reason, they speak to me. Underlying the story and its characters, regardless of the setting, there are the real people who existed and the events that took place in history. They inform our writing and help to insure history will not be forgotten.
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