Going to War, Maybe? — STEVEN HARDESTY

When I finish writing a novel I fall into a ghastly funk. Because all those wild characters I meet in my stories – so unlike the people I know IRL – have taken off for other mad adventures elsewhere and left me behind and alone.

Not this time, no, no, no. I’ve just finished indie-publishing on Amazon an anti-war war novel (see the image next door) that started out jolly good fun but ended surprisingly grim-grim-grim and war-horrible. What else can you expect from a war novel gone anti? And I don’t want to see those characters ever again. Here’s why:

Not many people are in favor of war, least of all the soldiers who fight wars. That’s my experience as I was a soldier in war once-upon-a-time. But a lot of those not-in-favor don’t much care if somebody else makes war on somebody even more else. This story focuses on the hapless adventuring through the Army and the Vietnam war of the nameless main character, a young, ambitious, befuddled, brand-new soldier. But the book really is aimed at Those Others.

Young people do the heavy lifting in war and most of the being torn up and made dead. So I thought I’d start the book with a young person’s excited ambition to go to war and build to the tell-it-like-it-is. All the way to the bitter end I saw.

Ah, well, better writers have told the war story better – James Jones (The Thin Red Line, The Pistol), Joseph Heller (Catch-22) and Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front). And, of course, Kurt Vonnegut (Slaughterhouse-Five) and George MacDonald Fraser (Quartered Safe Out Here).

But those books did not focus on the young man or woman 18-25 years old – prime conscription/enlistment age – who most needs to think about war before s/he signs up to fight. Some wars need to be fought (December 7, 1941) and some don’t (my war). Took me years to figure out which is which and that is what I want to tell the 18-25 readers. So they don’t do what I did and go fight the wrong war.

Just added the paperback version on Amazon. Now you’ve two formats to use in telling me if the novel hits its target. Or that I must try again. As bitter experience makes me want to tell well a story worth its telling.