Authors: Ellen Hopkins
Collateral (2 page)
This book is dedicated to America's warriors and their loved
ones, whose patriotism and sacrifice cannot be overstated.
Be strong. Be safe. Let love conquer the loneliness.
Many thanks to everyone who shared their stories of deployment with me: Abi, Amanda, Amber, Ashley, Ash, Corrina, Elyse, Jen, Jenna, and Rick, plus several who shared them in passing. To all of you, and any I may have forgotten, please know how important your stories were to creating this book.
With a huge shout-out to Kylie Alstrup and Mary Claire Boucher, whose stories served as special inspiration for characters you'll meet in these pages. Thank you, ladies. And thanks to Connor and Dana, too.
Finally, to Deb Gonzales. Thanks, m'dear. You were so right.
With
Collateral,
my goals are to put a spotlight on our returning warriors and to hopefully increase interest in providing the resources they need. As more and more return home, the help they require will become harder to find, because of the struggling economy and also because of the growing anti-war sentiment in this country, which may very well be valid. But our service people didn't take us to war, and they lay their lives on the line for our freedoms every single day.
I have a special interest in traumatic brain injuries, and the cumulative effect of smaller, often undiagnosed traumas that can result in devastating consequences. A lot of this research is relatively new, and it's hugely important that both military families and civilians understand the possible outcomes.
This is not a book meant to dismiss or lessen the sacrifice of our soldiers. It is highly researched. Cole's Marine battalion does, in fact, exist, and was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan over this exact timeframe. I followed them through news stories, battalion newsletters, and Facebook accounts. I also read accounts of coalition forces, watched hours of videos, movies, YouTube postings, and more. Plus, I scoured Iraqi and Afghani news sources, seeking information largely never seen in the U.S.
Collateral
illustrates war from the warrior's POV, as well as its effects on both soldiers and loved ones and, yes, even those who
live in the countries we've occupied. It is not a “romance novel” (though love is a driving factor), nor does it make light of the impact of war. I have the utmost respect for those who choose to serve our country, either overseas or on home shores. And, while I currently have no close family members in the service, I do have many friends there, and many readers there, and their stories speak to me.
Within my fiction, I write the truth always, and I have to believe military families want to read the truth about themselves, and to have this truth realized by those who live dissimilarly. Civilian or military, will you like every fact you read in these pages? Probably not, but I can't whitewash war, any more than I can prettify addiction or prostitution or abuse. Surely military families don't want their realities scrubbed of pain or danger or love or what that love might evolve into, when war is the driving factor.
Ashley is one of thousands of military girlfriends trying to build a future from the scraps of her present. The peripheral stories here are just as important, and the heart of them all came to me from real soldiers' spouses. Some military relationships survive, and even thrive. Others simply can't. That is fact. I truly believe military families want books that represent their daily lives, not some scrubbed version. Knowledge is power, I often say. And so is understanding.
âEllen Hopkins, July 2012
As Earth returns to chaos, her women brace to mourn,
excavate their buried faith, tap reservoirs of grace, to mourn.
Soldiers steady M-16s, search stillborn eyes for welcome
or signs of commonality. Ferreting no trace, they mourn.
Few are safe, where passions swell like gangrened limbs
you cannot amputate. Sever one, another takes its place,
and you mourn.
Freefall into martyrdom, a bronze-skinned youth slips into the
crowd, pulls the pin. He and destiny embrace, together mourn.
Grenades are colorblind. A woman falls, spilling ebony hair
beside the blond in camouflage. Death's doorman gives chase. All
mourn.
Even hell capitulates to sudden downpour. Cloudburst sweeps across
the hardpan, cracks its bloodstained carapace. Hear God mourn.
Up through scattered motes, a daughter reaches for an album. She
climbs into a rocking chair to search for Daddy's face, and mourn.
Downstairs, a widow splinters on the bed, drops her head into his
silhouette, etched in linen on the pillowcase, to mourn.
Alone, the world is ugly in black. When final night descends
to blanket memory, drops its shroud of tattered lace, who will
mourn?
POETS WRITE ELOQUENTLY
About war, creating vivid images
of severed limbs, crusting body fluids
and restless final sleep, using nothing
more than a few well-crafted words.
Easy enough to jab philosophically
from the comfort of a warm winter
hearth or an air-conditioned summer.
But what can a sequestered writer know
of frontline realitiesâblistering
marches under relentless sand-choked
skies, where you'd better drink
your weight in water every day or die
from dehydration? Flipsideâteeth-
cracking nights, too frigid for action,
bored out of your mind as you try
to stay warm in front of a makeshift fire.
How can any distant observer know
of traversing rock-rutted trails,
hyperaware that your camouflage comes
with a built-in bull's-eye; or of sleeping
with one ear listening for incoming
peril; or of the way fear clogs your
pores every time you climb inside
a Humvee and head out for a drive?
You can see these things in movies.
But you can't understand the way
they gnaw your heart and corrode
your mind, unless you've been a soldier
outside the wire in a country where
no one native is really your friend,
and anyone might be your enemy.
You don't know till you're ducking
bullets. The only person you dare rely
on is the buddy who looks a lot like
youâtoo young for this, leaking bravado,
and wearing the same uniform.
Even people who love soldiersâ
people like meâcan only know these
things tangentially, and not so much
because of what our beloveds tell us
as what they'll never be able to.
Is extremely hard. Loving a Marine
who's an aggressive frontline marksman
is almost impossible, especially when
he's deployed. That's not now. Currently,
Cole is on base in Kaneohe, awaiting
orders. The good thing about that is
I get to talk to him pretty much every
day. The bad thing is, we both know
he'll go back to the Middle East as soon
as some Pentagon strategist decides
the time is right, again. Cole's battalion
has already deployed twice to Iraq
and once to Afghanistan. Draw-down
be damned, Helmand Province and beyond
looks likely for his fourth go-round.
You'd think it would get easier. But ask
me, three scratch-free homecomings
make another less likely in the future.
Me about falling in love
with a guy in the military,
I'd tell you to about-face
and double-time toward
a decent, sensible civilian.
Someone with a fat bank
account and solid future,
built on dreams entirely
his own. I'd advise you
to detour widely around
any man who prefers fatigues
to a well-worn pair of jeans;
whose romantic getaways
are defined by three-day
leaves; who, at age twenty-
six has drunk more liquor
than most people manage
in a lifetime. He and his
fellow grunts would claim
it's just for fun. A way to let
their hair down, if they had
much hair to speak of. But
those they leave behind,
devoted shadows, understand
that each booze-soaked
night is a short-lived
retrieve from uncertain
tomorrows, unspeakable
yesterdays. Service. Sacrifice.
The problem with that being,
everyone attached to those
soldiers must sacrifice, too.
So, as some Afghani warlord
might say, put that in your
pipe and smoke it. Okay, that
was actually my grandpa's saying.
But it works, and what I mean
is, think long and hard before
offering your heart to someone
who can only accept it part-time.
I didn't go looking for some dude
with crewed yellow hair and piercing
golden eyes. It just happened.
So here I am, in the second year
of my MSW program at San Diego
State, while he brushes up his sniper
skills twenty-six hundred miles away.
Some people consider Hawaii paradise,
an odd place for a Marine base. Except,
if you consider war in the Pacific Theater.
Except, why not? I'm elbow-deep in
Chaucer when his call, expected, comes.
Hey, babe.
His voice is a slow burn,
melting all hint of chill inside me.
Word came down today. Two weeks.
How fast can you get here? I need
serious Ash time. And, I've got a surprise
for you. Something . . . really special.
“Sounds intriguing. No hints?”
He refuses and I consider what
it will take to reach him. “I'll look
into flights and let you know. Probably
next weekend.” It will be a pricey ticket.
But I have no choice. Cole Gleason is my heart.
About nothing, really, at all.
Finally, we exchange love-
soaked good-byes and I do my best
to go back to Chaucer. I've got
a paper due on Friday. But it's hard
to concentrate. The couple next door
is having one of their regular
shouting matches, and the thin walls
of this apartment do little to dampen
the noise. Every time they go off
on each other, it plunges me straight
back into my childhood. My parents
argued regularly, in clear earshot
of the neighbors or their friends
or even at family gatherings. And
they always made up the same
way, so everyone could hear, taking
special care to let my little brother,
Troy, and me understand that
no matter how much they had grown
to dislike each other, that paper
they signed in front of the priest
was a forever contract and meant
more than personal happiness.
Their own brand of sacrifice.
I grew up equating public displays
of affection with private problems
and, when I found out about Dad's
affairs, with covert actions. Hmm.
Maybe that's why I'm so attracted
to someone who specializes in
ferreting out the truth. Ha, and
maybe my parents don't like him
for the same reason. Mom claims
it's because anyone who signs up
to kill innocent people right along
with the bad guys must be either
brainwashed or brain-dead.
Of course, she has a personal
relationship with the military
through her father, a Viet Nam vet
who came home irreparably damaged.
Nor my grandmother. Both died when
Mom was eleven. She was raised
by her dad's mother, “crazy Grandma
Gen,” as she calls her. I don't know if
Genevieve was really crazy, or if that's just
how she seemed to Mom. But I do think
losing both parents in the same accident
plowed deep into Mom's psyche. To a stranger,
she'd seem standoffish. To her friends,
a challenge to know. To Troy and me,
she is a river of devotion beneath a thick
veneer of ice. To Dad . . . I'm not sure.
Sometimes, when she giggles at one
of his ridiculous jokes, or when he looks
at her in a certain way, I see a ghost
of what they once meant to each other.
What I do know is when I truly need support,
she always comes through, at least once
we make it past her counseling sessions.
But, hey. She's my mother. It's her job