My connection to the military is that I served for 7 1/2 years in the Army National Guard. My connection to romance is that I’m a college professor at Fayetteville State University (right outside Ft. Bragg), and I study romance novels for a living. I’m the President of the International Association for the Study of Popular Romance (IASPR) and I’ve recently published an analytical article on Suzanne Brockmann’s Navy SEAL/security contractor romance hero, Sam Starrett. I also review for Dear Author and post at Teach Me Tonight.

In my once a month posts, though, I’ll probably be posting about something a little more controversial than the National Guard or Suzanne Brockmann’s Navy SEAL heroes. Because not only was I an officer in the National Guard (and very proud of my service), but I am myself bisexual, something I can say now only because I’m out of the military. If I’d said it before my separation and someone in my command had noticed it, they would have separated me under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

I recently said on a podcast, “There’s gays in the military already. […] I once had somebody—a soldier—tell me, ‘Well, everybody knows that the military is antipathetic towards gay people so, if you’re gay, why would you want to join an organization that doesn’t want you?’ And I just looked at him and I said, ‘Gay people have the same patriotic feelings and the same nationalistic feelings, and the same desire to serve as anybody else.’ […] They’re not just gay, they’re Americans, and they feel just as strongly about that as you, with your straight privilege over there, and they want to act on that.”

I very much feel this topic is pertinent to the romance world because…well, because it’s about love. GLBT people cannot help who they are or who they love and, in most cases, wouldn’t want to. But that doesn’t mean they don’t want to serve, nor should it stop them from serving. If 5-10% of the general population is gay, then about 5% of the military is probably gay as well and should be allowed to serve, just as their straight brothers- and sisters-in-arms do. Because it doesn’t matter who they go home to at night. All that matters is that they get their job done.

One of the reasons I started Romance Roll Call was to also provide a place for writers and readers to find resources. I’ve been asked multiple times where are good places to start and I’ve got my own backlist of great books out there. But for authors who have no personal military experience but who want to write about soldiers, research is required and the sheer amount of books out there in your local book store can be daunting, to say the least.

So today marks the first Non Fiction Spotlight. It will run every third Monday and will feature non fiction books, either on the military itself or on writing. The spotlight will tell a little about the book and let you decide where to start.

One of the most powerful books I’ve read about the Iraq War to date is Martha Raddatz’s The Long Road Home. Not simply because it’s about 1st Cavalry Division troopers and the 1st Cav is where I earned my combat spurs, but because I’m friends with some of the men in that story. My brigade commander was the battalion commander there and I had no idea what he’d gone through when I was tasked to be his aide one week in 2008. But after a bad training run in a MOUT (military operations in urban terrain) site, he asked me if I knew what happened in Sadr City. He told me I needed to talk to CPT Aguero and listen to him.

I found this book within a day of coming back from the field and read it. I didn’t know any of the men at the time of reading it. Aguero is somewhat of a legend but when you get to know him, at the heart of him is a warrior. A man who simply wants to be at war, doing what the army trained him to do.

See CPT Aguero was the platoon leader who was pinned down inside an alley with his platoon in Sadr City. They’d been out on a mission when the Mahdi Militia decided they were ready to fight. They picked the fight on the day of TOA (transfer of authority) before the battalion commander officially owned the battlespace.

There is some focus in this book about Casey Sheehan and his mother, anti war activist Cindy Sheehan’s reaction to his death but this book is not completely about her or her son. Ms Raddatz takes you onto the FOB. You can feel the devastation of the men as they fight to bring their trapped platoon home. And you can feel the horror of the soldiers who have to make some of the hardest decisions in war in order to survive.

If you want to feel the urgency of needing to get into the fight to save your men, if you want to feel the pain of the wives back home, waiting for notification, read this book. Ms Raddatz’s storytelling is profound and this book marks a significant contribution to our war’s history.

You can order The Long Road Home through AMAZON, BARNES & NOBLE, BORDERS or wherever you find books.