mjbrettsblog

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Margaret's Musings
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	So many readers have asked me questions about my novels and about the characters, that it seems appropriate to elaborate a little about the process of collecting information from interviews, letters, and diaries and turning them into stories. Call this my blog, if you choose. Except to change the names to protect the guilty, my historical fiction is based on true stories and events. I'll try to tell you how each book came into being. If you have any questions or comments, I hope you'll "contact the author" from the home page and I'll try to answer any concerns you may have. I'd like this to be a "dialogue" and not just a "monologue."
	My new novel finally has a title: Street Smart on a Dead End will be out in July, 2008. It's based on a true story, as are all of my books, and it concerns the culture clash of value systems in the 60's when a straight-laced, conservative family takes in a thirteen year old drug addict who says she wants to kick her habit. Can a pair of teachers, even with the best of intentions, save a foul-mouthed, drug-addicted, gang involved teenager without destroying their lives and family? Keep watching for further news on this one. I have the opening chapter for you On the Readings and Excerpts page. Let me know what you think on "contact the author."
	New cover idea by one of my former Journalism student editors, Maj..Jesse Easter, using newstories about drugs and gangs overlaid by the red title.
	Novels already in print
	From Mutti's War, this is the river that flows through Königsberg, East Prussia, as seen in 1938

	Not surprisingly, even living in Germany for 21 years, I found that most people were quite reluctant to talk about World War II. Some of that reticence may have been collective guilt, some a fear that the interviewer might be critical, and some just because people couldn't bear to remember the sadness of that era in their country. In Mutti's case, she truly believed that if she never talked about the war, her sons would never remember all the ugliness they had seen so, once the war was over, she never spoke of it again. She changed the subject whenever I asked her questions, even after I married her eldest son and became her "American" daughter-in-law.
	Perhaps she was right, because my husband, "Willi" in the story, remembered only the physical elements of the long trek--being tired, cold, hungry, (especially hungry) scared of strafing planes, and anxious to find his Vati. But he had no idea of all his mother had endured to keep him and his brothers alive, or the Nazi laws she had broken to smuggle them across a country at war. He had only been nine at the time, and the physical events had been quite traumatic enough.
	After many futile attempts to get Mutti to talk, since I was interested in the history of the era, and she had lived it, I finally had her alone one day when the rest of the family was out for their "obligatory" after-dinner four hour walk. I had stayed behind to keep her company. I guess I finally asked the right question--a journalist's question, with no easy yes, no, or evasive answer, because she finally answered. I asked her, "When in your whole life were you the most frightened?" I assumed she would say something about the bombings, but at least it would get a foot in the door to more open conversation. She paused, and then said quietly, "I think it was when I was lying in a muddy ditch, watching two Russian sentries pace on the road above me, and I was trying to count how many seconds it took for them to go to the end and return, so I'd know how long I had to run across the road and the minefield and get into the trees." She added with a grin, "I was so scared of their guns that I kept forgetting the numbers."
	I almost fell out of my chair! Our dear, petite, quiet little Mutti had actually run the Cold War Border between East and West Germany to get her children to the west zone, and no one in the family even knew it! At that point, I gasped, "Mutti, you must tell me the rest--people need to know." She made me promise I wouldn't write the story until after she was gone. I realized later that she couldn't bear to have her sons ask questions about their father. In spite of all the pain, she loved that man until the day she died and sobbed uncontrollably at certain points of our many interviews. After that first day, it was almost as though I had unzipped the heart, and all her life fell out. She seemed actually eager to tell me everything and get it off her chest after so many years of holding it all in. I began taking copius notes on whatever I happened to have in my purse when we were alone and she felt like talking--napkins, envelopes, laundry lists. But I had to take them home and just throw them in my drawer because I had promised. After her death, two years later, I got out the drawer, sat in the middle of my living room rug and "sorted" all my scraps of paper into a logical order. "Willi" was quite shocked when I eventually asked him to read the manuscript. "Why didn't I know about this? Why didn't she ever tell us?" were about all the questions he could stammer. He was obviously in awe of all his mother had accomplished and all she had kept secret for her whole life.
	Mutti didn't think anyone would be interested in her story, but I find each reader sees her resourcefulness in bending every rule, walking every road, and foraging every forest to keep her children alive through the endless trek across a horrible war zone as an example of the strength to which we all hope we can rise, when tested. Hemingway would call it "grace under pressure," and declare her a heroine. Her story has become the universal story of a woman's physical courage, as well as the political and emotional courage to make life-shattering decisions when she must, regardless of her own pain in doing so.
	I'm grateful Mutti finally shared her story with me before she slipped away from us, and I hope she would be proud of what I've done with it. It was a labor of love. She was a great lady to all of us even before we knew her story--just as a loving mother and grandmother that no one ever saw lose her grace or raise her voice. Her sons deserved to know of her heroism, and we all can enjoy the mystery she kept secret all those years to protect those she loved.
	I hope her story is one you will enjoy as well. Let me know what you think, either of Mutti's War, or of my comments to you here. You can always send me your questions on the "contact the author" part of the home page, and I hope you will. I'll try to answer any of your questions here on this blog page. Thanks for visiting, Margaret
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	From Shadows on an Iron Curtain - a cover drawing by fellow DoDDS teacher Ron Hosie from a photo I took on the East/Wests communist Border near Hof, Germany, while living there seven years during the Cold War. You can see the communist guard towers, the mine field, and the razor wire fence.
	Shadows on an Iron Curtain came about because I was a little angry. Now that the Cold War is over, we won, the walls fell, the communists went home, yet all anybody seems to remember about all those years of our history is the Berlin Wall. Of course, the Berlin Wall was a powerful symbol of resistance to the communist juggernaut because it was very visible, being in one of the world's largest cities, and anything that happened there was heard all around the world in minutes on international newswires, so it was also very public. But the Border stretched all across Europe, dividing the East and West, dividing farms, families and small towns into free and communist enclaves. It was much less visible, and far more secret than the Berlin Wall. No one ever publicized the intrigue of the Border. But as a school teacher sent by the Department of Defense to teach children in Bamberg, a military base whose soldiers guarded that Border 24/7, I quickly learned that their mission was a potentially suicidal one, putting them on the edge of extinction with every "Alert." Of the seven years I lived on that Border, I wrote of two years during which our troops were actually on Alert more days than they were off.
	Who would make better impartialobservers of our military Border activities, than four ditzy new school teachers who are sent to the base without even knowing it's a Border base? They, too, had only heard about the more famous Berlin Wall, and never realized the Border even existed. Over their first few weeks, they become acquainted (naturally--smile) with several of the single 2nd and 3rd Armored Cavalry officers, and the officers of their supporting units, whose troops are responsible for Border security. Because of the potential for a communist invasion, the teachers and officers become part of the protective "family" of the Border that interweaves to keep everyone safe...sometimes from their own depression. While everyone loves to ski and party--about the only two recreations they are allowed, they also gradually discover the mysterious "Spooks" (undercover operatives) who "haunt" both sides of the Border and seem to have their own agendas and gun battles. With each Alert, more is discovered of the "training accidents" that are not really accidents, the "shortages of equipment" that disappear, the "nukes" that both sides hide cleverly, the sabotage of military facilities, the terrorist threats of Bader Meinhoff, and the problems of aviators flying the Border in all weather, which occasionally precipitates accidental international Border incidents. They are often targeted by communist radar with missiles loaded. It's called being "painted."
	It is interesting that many people in the U.S. considered they were "at peace in Europe" for all those years. They would be surprised to know how many times we were within a hairsbreadth of World War III, (usually when one of our national leaders opened his mouth to give a speech). Any war then, would most definitely have been nuclear. Most Americans did not seem to realize that it was our SAC planes constantly in the air, and our Cavalry and their supporting Infantry, Artillery, Aviation, Intelligence, and Engineering counterparts on the ground at that Border that kept us out of a war for all the years until the Soviets gave up and went home in 1989. It is the story of these ground troops who confronted the Soviets each time they threatened to cross their Border and take the rest of Europe that Shadows on an Iron Curtain attempts to tell. (My favorite "rave review" came from an Army pilot from Air Cav who had flown the Border for years. He wrote to tell me, "Finally, an author who knows what NOE is and can explain 'painting' of our aircraft. The Cold War was a lot 'hotter' than most people knew. Thank you for finally getting it right," This pilot felt that no one had understood the risks of our military folks at that time, or had given them support, thinking they were in the "safest place in the world." But any DMZ is always loaded with potential disaster.
	As readers, you might find it interesting that I simply wrote the whole story, not giving "military security" a thought. Though it seemed everything was top secret while I was there, I thought the passage of thirty years since the 1974-76 time period of the novel, and the retreat of the Soviets, would have eliminated any need for military secrets.Wasn't Russia supposed to be a "friend" by now? But, being around military people for so long (21 years teaching on bases overseas plus being married to an Army pilot), I began to get a little nervous about security once the manuscript was nearing completion. What if I had inadvertantly said something that could still hurt our soldiers? To ease my mind, I e:mailed chapter by chapter to an old friend, the "Spook, Big Ed" in the story, to have him check it out. Sure enough, there were still three "classified" things I had to remove from the book, and one thing I had to "move." He said, "It's sealed, camoflaged, and no one knows it's there, but if we ever have problems in Europe again, we'll need it. You can tell about it, but don't give away its location." So I "moved" this facility in the novel. Then he said, "By the way, how did you know about that, anyway?" I told him, "I think you told me." He laughed, and said, "Oops." Unfortunately, after he approved the story for security issues and accuracy, and only a year after the publication of Shadows on an Iron Curtain,"Big Ed" died suddenly. He had been paralized for many years, but we had always remained friends, and he e:mailed me daily. A wonderful man, and I really miss his little "one-finger messages" on the computer. We also lost our dear friend, "Emily" in 2007, only weeks after the DoDDS reunion in July where she was her usual "dramagic" self. She was a much loved member of the original "fearsome foursome" of teaching friends in this book, who faced all the dangers of the Cold War together.
	I hope you'll want to meet the "family" who defended the Border: the cocky Cavalry, the Artillery who could actually drink their lethal punch, the muddy Infantry, the Aviators who flew around trees as often as over them, the Spies who kept a low profile, the Engineers who actually liked working with mines, and yes, the DoDDS school teachers who taught children first, and supported their military friends afterward. The alcoholic, the cynic, the skirt chaser, the party animal, the soft heart, the flirt, the sophisticate, the skier, the secretive--all are seen through the naive eyes of a suicidal young widow who must gather strength to live from the example of men facing the possibility of death with every Alert. This novel is both comic and tragic, but it tells their story. I wanted you to know that it was the vigilance of these soldiers who kept the Cold War from becoming a Hot War, yet few would ever know of the secret shadows against that Iron Curtain.
	Do let me know if you have questions or comments. Just "contact the athor." And if you would like more history of the Cold War and Cavalry/military participation, see my page on this website on Links.
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	Between Duty and Devotion is the story of a fast-track military officer who has tremendously effective command of his troops, but no control of his private life. He eventually must make horrendous choices between his duty to his country and his devotion to those he loves.
	This novel came about because through my affiliation with the military for 21 years, skiing and traveling with many of the people involved, we became good friends and confidants. It seems that as I watched their rank going upward, I also noticed their marriages going downward. As a curious writer, I wondered why that might be happening. What mysterious effect of the military environment could also affect a marriage? My subsequent interviews and research with my friends and other military people led me to tell the story of the difficulty of sustaining military relationships. While a good marriage where two people understand and support each other's work, and where their communication is good enough they can talk things over before they escalate to an argument, will be a great thing, in or out of the military, all marriages are not that solid. If a woman loves the idea of marriage, sees her military man going up through the ranks as part of her security, and sees walking under those crossed swords as Cinderella-style romance, the couple is in for a rough ride. It means she doesn't understand that when she married that guy who looked cute in his uniform, she was also marrying his military duty and responsibility.
	As soon as my friends found that I was creating this story as a novel, combining five couples as one dysfunctional family, which would also camoflage their identities, they came forward with letters, diaries, and journals to be sure I had enough information for my research. One officer even sent me a copy of his divorce papers! Now, that was more information than I needed. But the point is that they all felt this story "needed to be written" and they were eager to supply personal case studies, since they felt that military relationships are greatly misunderstood by the public at large. Most people don't realize the extra stress that is placed on the shoulders of a man who is responsible for the lives of others, and the stress that fact places on the rest of a family. And also, most civilians do not understand that a military person may have to give up a great deal of his or her personal freedom in order to protect the freedom of others. It takes a strong marriage indeed, to survive under all the additional stressors of frequent deployments, the fear of war's death rate, loneliness and infidelity, raising children alone, not to mention any excess "baggage" brought into the marriage by either partner. With the Iraq war going on, it is no wonder that the military divorce rate has doubled in the last year. This story traces the sources of friction in the lives of a married couple who may have married for the wrong reasons--a typical case of a dysfunctional relationship intensified by the military life style, yet convoluted by restrictions on a divorce while in the service. One could see it as either a love story that lasts into Eternity, or the marriage from Hell, but I've long since discovered that everyone reads into a story what they need to read into it, so opinions will vary. Young wives at a nearby Army base laughingly told me they had selected this story as their "textbook" for how NOT to be a good military wife. Others see in it the warmth and self-sacrifice one may find accidently, even when one feels rejected and lacking in confidence. I gave a copy to a young cadet from the Air Force Academy who had already reserved their beautiful chapel for his wedding the day after graduation (the magic of those crossed swords again) and he had not even chosen the girl yet! I told him that he needed to read this story before making any further decisions. He did, and called to say he had cancelled his reservation. Do let me know what you think. Though many husbands and wives are strong and caring, if there are any cracks in the foundation of a marriage, the military life will certainly exacerbate them into chasms. I hope there are very few women like "Faye" in the world, but I'm sure anyone who has served their country will recognize someone like her. She comes to life in this novel. This particular officer is on his way up, which pleases his wife, but while she loves the marriage for its security and status, she also says she hates the man. His dearest dream is a love of warmth and intimacy to support him in his demanding job. While he can meet her need for security, she, for whatever reason, cannot meet his need for emotional warmth. The resulting catastrophe is probably unavoidable. Can he meet his obligations to the military responsibility he loves and still save his children and the woman who loves him, or will the "most painful decision of a lifetime" ruin all hopes and dreams.
	As readers, you might like to know that I did some experimentation in this novel. While it, too, takes place in Cold War Germany, it is not as much about the dangerous life of the Border and the rigorous areas of Grafenwohr as it is about the relationships that develop under these pressures. I experimented with Point of View. The story is told from three different points of view, chapter by chapter, as three very different characters inevitably approach the conflagration where all must make painful decisions. It seemed the most natural way to express their need to face realities that invade their expectations. And yes, the characters do become very real to me, and others have expressed the same thing. One reader wrote me, "I feel that I know these characters, and they represent the dilemma all military couples face." I would say they probably represent any and all couples, military or civilian, who have somehow lost the ability to communicate. Another reader said, "This dysfunctional couple could be any of us, and their decisions, good and bad, become our own." A third wrote, "This story has it all, malice, incompatabiity, longings, betrayal...all the things that can ruin your day...but it also has the hope found in eternal friendship and loyalty to one's country." Sadly, one of the composite charactors in this novel also passed away shortly after completion of the story, only six days after the "Spook" of Shadows on an Iron Curtain. "Neil" was another good man, who perhaps tried far too hard to protect everyone and everything--an impossiblity--but God Bless him for trying. It has been a hard year for me to lose these loving friends, and only this last month, another of the composite characters also died of cancer. "Skip" and "Neil," of Between Duty and Devotion are now both gone, as well as "Big Ed the Spook" and "Emily" of Shadows on an Iron Curtain. I'm grateful that at least all four good and faithful friends had a chace to read "their" stories before they died. I've tried to portray them honestly for my readers to know and appreciate them as I have "Skip" was fond of paraphrasing Goethe when he said that every day we should appreciate something "good, fine, and reasonable." Friendships are to me, so very precious...good, fine, and reasonable.. Sleep well, my dear and loyal friends. I'll miss you all.
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