Important Message from author Kate Quinn
Author Kate Quinn posted a heartfelt, profound message about her husband’s military service on Facebook. I’m publishing it here to help get this message out. As many readers know, Kate is a celebrated author of historical fiction who has received many awards and accolades. Stephen serves in the US Navy.
Kate Quinn: There is a particular heartbreak in watching someone see a heartfelt oath crumble.
My feelings about what is happening to this country are not complicated. My feelings are rage and bitterness and shame and all the shades of the rainbow in between. But I’m a civilian and I didn’t take an oath to uphold this country as my near-20-years-active-duty-Navy husband has done, and I’ve had the bitter occasion of watching his oath crumble before his eyes in real time, and it is heartbreaking.
Make no mistake, he made his oath–and has kept it, through multiple deployments and endless heartbreak–with eyes wide open and a critical gaze for this country he loves. He has always known that this nation is far from perfect; that it has much shame in its history and in its actions. He has always used that as a fundamental drive to be BETTER than the oath requires; to not be the swaggering selfish example of Americanism but the type that serves and represents humbly as well as fiercely. Every time he has gone overseas, my introvert of a husband turns into an extroverted diplomat learning cultural norms and customs so that people will never think worse of an American for having known him. Bahrani grandmothers adored him and taught him how to properly cook mutton; Japanese groundsmen taught him the micro-differences between levels of appropriate bowing; Pakistani sailors whom he helped save wrote his ship letters of thanks which now adorn our wall in frames. He’s managed–walking the line of patriotism and cynicism and honest service–to give nearly twenty years of his life in military service. That’s a lot of birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmases, anniversaries and loved ones lost during deployments and overseas service.
And now it’s a lot of rage, as he watches the current administration burn down the government and hurt so very many of those he has sworn to protect. He’s answering the phone for suicidal service members who can’t get an appointment at the VA anymore because of DOGE. He’s bailing out vets with his own money when they can’t make rent, because they’ve been furloughed and are sitting with unpaid bills because Trump’s Congress doesn’t want to reopen the government and risk the Epstein files getting released (not to mention the terrifying prospect that broke Americans might get healthcare). He’s propping up gay and trans friends and service members who are terrified that they’re about to be targeted–he’ll probably be targeted too, since he’s openly bi and has been loud and proud about that for years to give support to young LGBTQIA+ Navy personnel who might need a mentor, but he doesn’t give a shit about being targeted. He has a fucking job to do. Not to mention that he’s watching the White House get bulldozed, and watching his oaths and twenty years of sacrifice get bulldozed along with it…and it’s breaking my heart.
His oath, as he constantly reminds any military personnel who seem confused on the topic, is fundamentally to the Constitution over the Presidency, period. “A 10 page document,” he’s said to me, “that tells us who we are, and more importantly, that we have the power to be better still. So what’s left if they burn that up? Some empty words and the promise of a pension?”
I wish I had a reply to that.
I wish I could make the people who support this current political madness reply to that. Because Stephen Wyckoff would have a two-hit fight with you: he’d hit you right in the face, and you’d hit the floor.
Like Indiana Jones, he loves punching Nazis.
~~
Mary: Just a few of my favourite Kate Quinn novels …
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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon , Nook , Kobo , Google Play and iTunes . She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com .
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