I love a book, movie or television show that makes the military look good. Sometimes, it’s too good, like NCIS. The Navy’s equivalent to the FBI only wishes they had access to the equipment shown on this popular show.

Then there’s Chuck, where agents from the CIA and NSC take commands from an Air Force brigadier general. That’s a bit off—the military directing spies. But what really gets my knickers in a bunch is the uniform the general wears. Seriously? Service dress to talk to underlings? Not going to happen. We’re at war, folks. Try a battle-dress uniform.

Authors tend to stick to the facts a bit better, maybe because readers have more time to nitpick over the details. That means it’s even more important to get your facts straight. After all, you don’t want some blogger blasting your lack of research.

So if you’re going to include military facts in your efforts, do a little research. And to make it easier for you, I’ve found the places you need to go to.

Start locally. Your nearest large military facility, whether it’s Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines or Coast Guard, will have a public affairs office. If it’s a small unit, someone will be designated as the public affairs representative. Call the installation operator and ask for public affairs or whoever answers requests from the public. If they can’t answer a list of questions, try asking for a base tour or a speaker to talk to your group.

The National Guard, aligned with the Army and the Air Force, are similar, but under the command of the state government. Though the units can be mobilized and fall under active-duty forces, they tend to be more available then the active forces and more open to community interaction. After all, these folks live around you and many have jobs in your town. They also have public affairs offices, but they aren’t always manned. You may be talking to whoever is on duty. Explain what you’re looking for and the Guard may be able to help.

Another place you can go for information is your local recruiting office. Recruiters generally take the assignment as a career-broadening experience. Since these military members often operate from one-deep offices, they are very accessible and would be able to answer general questions. They will also have access to demographic information, and career fields and what they do.

Below is contact information for each of the Armed Forces. All the armed services fall under the Department of Defense, except the Coast Guard, which comes under the Department of Homeland Security.

Army: Most willing Defense Department agency to work with uncontracted authors. New York Army Public Affairs director: Harry Sarles, Harrison.sarles <at> us.army.mil, 212-784-0111.

Air Force: New York Public Affairs Office handles author requests, though you must be contracted. Main number is 212-784-0147; email requests to bookrequest <at> mcguire.af.mil. Explain what you’re looking for and they will send a book request form. You’ll need to return it with a contract or letter of commitment.

Navy: Call the Navy’s New York office only if you have a contract. Fill out the online request form. Main phone: 212-784-0130. Current director is Lt. Cmdr. Suzanna Brugler, 212-784-0131. For base tours or general public requests, use the list of Navy Public Affairs Offices at: http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/paodir/address.txt.

Marine Corps: No central office. For Recruiting and Public Affairs Offices, go to: http://www.marines.mil/usmc/Pages/Contact.aspx. If desperate, email ontherecord <at> usmc.mil. This address is normally for credentialed media, but they may be able to refer you to another number.

Coast Guard: Requires a letter of intent or at least a letter of interest from a publisher. However, in some instances they do arrange interviews or other limited research support for authors who are earlier in the process. The support they provide will vary based on operational demands and what kind of access/support the author is seeking. Contact Angela Hirsch, Co-Chief, Community Relations Division, U.S. Coast Guard Office of Public Affairs, 202-372-4642 or angela.h.hirsch <at> uscg.mil.

I’m tired of cops, FBI agents and special ops heroes getting all the fun jobs in novels. I mean, how much effort does it take to make one of these career fields sexy, dangerous and appealing? None. Today I start on my campaign to make other military career fields prime for heroic action! Let’s start with public affairs.

I’ve been in public affairs for 25 years. I know special ops career fields tend to be a favorite of authors, but really, what do those guys do? Rescue a few people? Secret squirrel stuff we never hear about? But in PA, our affairs are all public. Seriously public, but in a funny way.

When I was a young 23-year-old Air Force second lieutenant, I got my first hint of what this career would be like. I had to write a fact sheet on a space mission that was to fly on the first polar shuttle launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. (This isn’t secret squirrel stuff. It never happened because Challenger blew up into a billion tiny pieces and NASA needed to focus on getting the shuttle back in the air.) I opened Aviation Week and Space Technology and read an article they’d written on the program, which was called Teal Ruby. With help from the program office, I crafted a brilliant, two-page fact sheet on this stationary system that would sit in the shuttle’s bay and monitor the aurora borealis, among other things. Then I got approval from the project office, and sent the information off for security review from our higher headquarters.

The fact sheet came back classified.

That’s when I learned many engineers call my magazine source for information Aviation Leak and Spy Technology. Oh, and that you shouldn’t believe everything in print. Give me a break! I was 23.

I write romantic suspense, and I admit, I like to leave a few bodies lying around in my novels. Not serial killer type, I can’t think like that. More, how the he** did that happen? This may have been influenced during a court-martial for the death penalty in Britain. A technical sergeant had stabbed a master sergeant several times over the senior ranking man’s flirtation with the other man’s wife. For those internationally savvy folks out there, the U.K. doesn’t have the death penalty, so the media were all over us. And as the ranking PA officer on base (by now I was a first lieutenant), it was my job to keep things orderly.

The court room sat 12 audience members, outside the legal teams, the judge and the jury. No room for reporters, so we’d take them into the courtroom before and after sessions and let them film it empty. I took a television crew in one day and the sound man picked up a photo off the prosecutor’s desk to do a camera lighting check. The white on the back of the photo was perfect for this task. But as he held up the photo, I saw what was on the other side: the bloody body of the master sergeant.

“Please don’t turn the photo over,” I tried to say as off-handedly as possible. “If you do, I’ll have to confiscate your film.” The sound man raised his eyebrows when he saw the photo and fortunately did not turn the picture over. I haven’t a clue how to confiscate film. But I imagine it would involve calling in armed security forces and really big headlines in the news.

Then there was the time I was offered black market goods in Moscow. Operation PROVIDE HOPE was public relations move to get European nations to help send food and medicine to agencies that lost their government support when the Soviet Union broke up. We PA folks were supposed to be taking media on flights with our humanitarian cargo. My AP reporter backed out on me while we were on a stop in Moscow, on our way to Ulan Ude, Siberia. In February. It was snowing in Moscow and as I turned around from the pay phone I’d just used, a man approached me, his hand holding his coat closed. He said in English as he opened his coat, “Would you like to buy a ham?”

Yes. In a large pocket inside his coat was the highly coveted canned ham of Moscow. I fought off laughing, even as I realized how desperate things must have been there at the time.

The life of public affairs officer is filled with unique experiences that many special ops men would question participating in. I fought off dozens of international media when the Yugoslavs got lucky and took out an F-117 stealth fighter jet during the Kosovo war. It was my job to keep the information out of the news while those search and rescue guys (yes, special ops) did their job of rescuing the pilot. For six hours we answered, “I have no information I can give you on that.” (That’s secret PA code for “I have information on that, but I can’t give it to you.” Not a lie, but also not what the media wants to hear.) More recently, it was reporters trying to find out information after CNN reported a C-17 cargo jet had crashed in Texas. It hadn’t, and it takes a while to find the whereabouts of nearly 200 planes to make sure we weren’t missing one.

There’s also the time the water in India attacked me. Believe me, when the flight surgeon says don’t drink the water, don’t even brush your teeth in it! I’d like to see anyone do their job horizontal on KC-10 flying over the Burma Hump. (Okay, so even PA can’t work with dysentery.) And then there was the community group we took to Berlin to see U.S. operations there. Five hours after we left, the Berlin Wall came down. We’re good. Real good.

I’d like to see those special ops guys do that. Or better: let’s make them talk to a reporter. You know, that secret squirrel stuff makes it hard for them to answer questions. Yes, that’s right. You would need a public affairs trained professional to do that.