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by Donna Tallman Gently and quietly he clicks the door shut on his sedan so that even the breeze is unruffled. He deliberately walks toward the oldest row of graves in Section 60. His perfect posture looks military-trained, while the lines on his face mark him Vietnam era. Always focused forward, the eyes of the man in his sixties hone in on one of the markers at the far end. Finally, he reaches the right one and slowly kneels in the grass. The grieving father bows his head. Some have said that hospital waiting rooms are the great equalizers of life – that injury and sickness recognize no social class, no ethnic divide, and no age category. All are equally at risk. Cemeteries are even more equalizing than waiting rooms. None recovers here. The father does not tarry long at his son’s grave. He’s not really here to visit him. Instead, he has come to care for the living. While no one else dares interrupt a widow’s vigil out of respect for her grief, the father does. This tender, caring man can approach where others never should. He is a fellow sufferer, a tempest traveler…one who knows first hand the cost of war. The father begins his rounds of visitation to the daughters he has adopted in the graveyard. He knows each one by name and checks on their welfare. Over the months they have all visited Arlington to grieve alone together; this unlikely group has grown from being intimate strangers among the tombstones, to caretakers of one another’s sorrow. While he knows that he cannot bring his son home from Afghanistan, the father seeks to heal the history death attempts to write in each of their hearts. Rising above his own agony, he reaches out to care for those around him, and in the process, finds refuge for his own soul. Yes, Arlington is a graveyard, a place of the dead. It is also a showcase for valor, a field of honor for America’s most courageous soldiers. And for those knit together by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Arlington is a place of healing from war’s ultimate sacrifice. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3). Prayer: When life’s raging tempest threatens to break my heart and my spirit, would you, oh Lord, step in with Your authority and restore calm to the churning waves around me? Deliver me and bind up any wounds incurred by my sojourn here on earth. *This devotion is an excerpt from Stories of Faith and Courage from the War in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The month of May is Military Appreciation Month! And I sure do appreciate our military. Being a former military wife myself, I can relate to the challenges and joys our military families go through. But even now that we lead a civilian lifestyle, I will never stop appreciating the sacrifices the military makes for the rest of us. Do you have time for a little story? A couple of years ago I was working on Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front, and one evening after the kids were in bed, I interviewed a Gold Star father who had lost his precious son in Iraq. It was an emotional conversation, and though my heart strings were pulled tight, I held it together while I was on the phone. (If you want to read the stories that resulted from that phone call, you can read them in the book on days December 3-6.) After we hung up, I cleaned up my notes and then went to check on my sleeping children, as I normally do before I call it a night. When I saw my little girl, though, the dam around my heart burst and I could not help but weep. Because there she was, sleeping with a small U.S. flag in her arms. I don't know why she had gotten out of bed to find it and decided to sleep with it that night. But it struck me that so many parents have lost their children to war so that my own children can live free. Thank you, military families! [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"952", "attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"430", "height":"574", "alt":"100_3106"}}]] Book Give-Away and Sale [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"772", "attributes":{"class":"media-image alignleft wp-image-900", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"140", "height":"218", "alt":"mwives nt cover_200"}}]]This coming Friday is Military Spouse Appreciation Day, specifically, so I am giving away two gift packages on the Faith Deployed blog! The first one contains both of my Faith Deployed books PLUS the new Military Wives' New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs, and the second gifts package includes Tour of Duty by Sara Horn, Heroes at Home by Ellie Kay, and Wounded Warrior, Wounded Home, by Marshele Carter Waddell and Dr. Kelly Orr. If you're a military wife, hop on over and enter the drawing! If you know a military wife, share the link with her so she can enter, too! Here's another cool thing going on in honor of Military Appreciation Month. Zondervan is running a special throughout the month of May. Buy one Military Wives’ New Testament with Psalms & Proverbs, get one FREE! Here’s how: Visit www.churchsource.com Add 2 copies to your cart, and enter promo code BD5W11 at checkout. How to Pray Even if we don't know any military personally, we can still pray for active duty members AND their spouses. Not sure what to pray for them, other than, "Keep them safe and encourage their hearts"? Well, I asked a military chaplain to give me a list of specific prayer requests for our service members, and I asked his wife to do the best internet casino same so we know how to pray for the spouses on the home front. In fact, I'm sharing these prayer requests in Book Fun Magazine this month, in an article I wrote that begins on page 77. To read it, visit the magazine, and then you can just flip pages on the way to page 77 (there are some great articles in there!) OR you can click on the search icon in the toolbar, type in "home front" and then click on the search result to go directly to the article. (There is also an excerpt from Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front there!) Happy Military Appreciation Month!  

It’s impossible to write a Civil War novel about medical care in the Union army without having at least some text devoted to amputations. Here’s some of the information that helped me as I wrote both Wedded to War and Widow of Gettysburg. Contrary to popular belief, the days of “biting the bullet” (or a leather strap) during an amputation were over by the time of the Civil War. Anesthesia was available in the form of chloroform and ether, even in field hospitals. However, if the soldier had been wounded more than 24 hours prior to amputation, the surgeon would not give anesthesia for fear the patient would not recover from it. And unfortunately, the Confederacy had a severe shortage of medicines, including these, to work with. So even though the medicine existed, there were plenty of cases where the patients had to go without it. But in the cases where anesthesia was available, there were specific guidelines for how to administer it. Chloroform According to the Manual of Military Surgery Prepared for the Use of the Confederate States Army (published 1863): Chloroform should be given in the fresh air with the patient’s head on a pillow and the body remaining horizontal throughout inhalation. Clothing should be loosened about the neck, chest and abdomen so that breathing is not restricted. Only a light but nutritious meal should be given earlier, or the state of unconsciousness during the second stage of the anesthetic might bring on vomiting. Before giving the chloroform, first give brandy. (Union surgeons did not always follow this point. They used alcohol stimuli only on physically depressed patients because they felt it could slow down the induction of anesthesia in a healthy patient.) The Confederate manual went on to instruct: “all special instruments of inhalation have been discarded, and a towel or napkin, folded into a cone, by having its corners turned down, is not almost universally employed for the purpose. The chloroform, about a drachm (one-eighth ounce) is poured into this cone, and is held over the patient’s mouth and nostrils which should previously have been anointed.” Holding the cone a half-inch from the patient’s face prevented facial blistering and allowed adequate air flow. The first stage of anesthesia was one of excitement, producing “muttering, wild eyed, the cries, the exalted imagination” followed by “violent struggles, attempts to rise, and rigid contraction.” If the spasm extended to the larynx, there would be danger of breathing being obstructed. Surgeons were instructed to remove the cone temporarily if this were the case. The second stage was that of unconsciousness, insensibility and relaxation of the voluntary muscles. Eyelids would no longer contract when touched. The pulse would slow and weaken, respiration became shallow and feeble. Ether Ether was slow-acting, had a foul smell patients objected to, and caused coughing. But it was frequently used in general hospitals where time was not as pressing, because, unlike chloroform, it did not cause vomiting, prostration or increased excitement. It was also far less dangerous if the wrong dose was given. Throughout the Civil War, only four deaths were recorded from overdoses of ether, while chloroform’s rate was 5.4 deaths for every thousand that used it. The Operation The book, Civil War Medicine, by C. Keith Wilbur, M.D. has easy-to-understand explanations and diagrams of various types of amputations. Those interested in primary source material for the operations can thank SonoftheSouth.net for posting excerpts from The Practice of Surgery by Samuel Cooper, here: http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundation/amputation.htm  The book, written in 1820, would have served as the how-to guide for surgeons in the beginning of the war. These online excerpts provide detailed instructions for amputation of legs, arms, fingers and toes, including photos of original Civil War instruments. Carl Schurz, commander of the Union’s 11th Corps at Gettysburg, offers this account of amputations after the battle: Most of the operating tables were placed in the open where the light was best some of them partially protected against the rain by tarpaulins or blankets stretched upon poles. There stood the surgeons their sleeves rolled up to the elbows, their bare arms as well as their linen aprons smeared with blood, their knives not seldom held between their teeth while they were helping a patient on or off the table, or had their hands otherwise occupied around them pools of blood and amputated arms or legs in heaps sometimes more than man high. Antiseptic methods were still unknown at that time. As a wounded man was lifted on the table often shrieking with pain as the attendants handled him the surgeon quickly examined the wound and resolved upon cutting off the injured limb. Some ether was administered and the body put in position in a moment. The surgeon snatched his knife from between his teeth where it had been while his hands were busy, wiped it rapidly once or twice across his blood stained apron and the cutting began. The operation accomplished the surgeon would look around with a deep sigh. and then—“Next!” Read The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz at Google Books here: http://bit.ly/OCf1CD  Recommended Sources: For more in-depth study, in addition to the resources I listed on my last post, I recommend: Cooper, Samuel. The Practice of Surgery. London: A and R Spottiswoode, 1820. Available at Google Books here: http://bit.ly/OvS97P. Hamilton, Frank Hastings. A Practical Treatise on Military Surgery. New York: Balliere Brothers, 1861. Available at Google Books here: http://bit.ly/O72JCN Teacher Tube video (5 min.) from the Museum of the Confederacy about amputations and artificial limbs. Not graphic at all. http://bit.ly/SZhlEF

Publishing and promoting a book is definitely a team effort, and one of the teams whose work I am most fascinated by is the one who created this book trailer for Wedded to War, the first book in my Heroines Behind the Lines series. Read on for an interview with Phil Jacoby, creative producer of Mothlight Creative, the company who made this happen. (Behind the scenes photos from the filming days included!) *See the book trailer here--and then come on back to read how they did it! Jocelyn: Watching the book trailer, I could tell that you knew more about Wedded to War than just what was on the back cover. You used a piece of dialogue, the characters looked so much the way I described them in the book, and I recognized all the scenes in the trailer as actually being part of the plot. How did you do that? Did one of you read the book or get the cliff notes version from someone at RiverNorth? You were spot on! Phil: We were given a manuscript by RiverNorth. We all read a bit of it, but Luke, our director, read a good deal of the book. We knew we wanted to be able to capture the characters, at least the main characters, as closely as possible. And to do that in the length of a single trailer we knew we would have to understand the story and the relationships as well as any reader might. In order to do that, we had to read it (or at least most of it). [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"733", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-737", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"672", "height":"378", "title":"Screen Shot 2012-06-29 at 2 18 22 PM", "alt":""}}]] Screen shot from the trailer   Jocelyn: Take me through the process of creating a book trailer, from the time you accept the job to completion. Briefly, what are the steps? How long does it take? Phil: It all depends on the project. We pitched a few directions to the publisher and the decision was made to proceed with the live-action option. Budget and time dictate (to an extent) what is possible in any project so we had to come up with a way to tell the story without overtelling it, lest we run out of time and/or resources. Once we had mapped out which parts of the story we wanted to hint at in the trailer we spent a few days– maybe a week– planning out shots, locations, finding actors, wardrobe, etc. From the time the project was approved to delivering the final product was roughly a month or so. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"922", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-728", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"717", "height":"477", "title":"settinghospitaltent", "alt":""}}]] Setting up the hospital tent   [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"734", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-738", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"672", "height":"378", "title":"Screen Shot 2012-06-29 at 2 26 11 PM", "alt":""}}]] Screen shot from trailer: inside the tent   Jocelyn: Where did you find your actors and actresses (including extras)? I noticed in one of your blog posts you mentioned some Mothlight staff were in the trailer too. Can you identify which ones those were? Phil: The actors who played the two main characters [Charlotte and Caleb] were hired from a local talent agency. We often pull from a list of people we know to act in videos, but we wanted to find people who fit the descriptions given in the book. The rest of the actors were Mothlight staff and friends. Two of the soldiers are Mothlight employees. The other three soldiers are friends of the staff. The woman who is the friend of the main character (seen giving birth in the trailer) [Ruby] is our director's wife and the villain of the story– the mustached character– was played by me. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"923", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-729", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"717", "height":"477", "title":"instructingcaleb", "alt":""}}]] Giving instructions to actor who played Caleb   [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"735", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-739", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"672", "height":"378", "title":"Screen Shot 2012-06-29 at 2 23 52 PM", "alt":""}}]] Screen shot from trailer: Caleb and Charlotte   Jocelyn: So you played Phineas! I love it! [Readers, see Phil's photo when he's not playing my villain on this page. Very dastardly expression on the third of his photos!] Where did you find the costumes and set pieces? Loved the amputation saw, by the way. Phil: The costumes and most of the props were furnished by a couple who live just outside of Pittsburgh. She is a writer for a local newspaper and he is a professor at a local university. In their spare time they are civil war re-enactors. When I told them about your book they looked it up and knew exactly which historical characters were being referenced and what the time period would have looked and felt like. All of the wardrobe belonged to them as well as the surgical tools and all of the weapons. The indoor sets and other various accessories were prepared for us by our co-director's wife. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"924", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-730", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"717", "height":"477", "title":"preppingpatient", "alt":""}}]] Behind the scenes: prepping the patient   [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"736", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-740", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"672", "height":"378", "title":"Screen Shot 2012-06-29 at 2 28 08 PM", "alt":""}}]] Screen shot from trailer   Jocelyn: I read on your Web site that the music you used was an original score you created, as well. I am so impressed! You did a beautiful job capturing the spirit and drama of Wedded to War with that music. How do you determine the best tone (in terms of music) for a book trailer? Phil: The score was created by Paul, one of our animators, and myself. We decided what the general tone of the trailer was and then added a pace to it. Music and sound tend to tell an audience how to feel about something, so even if we filmed images that we thought of as sad or tense, the audience would not necessarily fully believe those things unless the music told them to. I came up with a melody on guitar and Paul came up with a cooperative melody on piano. Once we had those things figured out all it took was placing percussion and small musical textures in the right places to create the dynamic shifts. We are pretty happy with how it turned out. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"925", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-731 ", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"717", "height":"477", "title":"housenotburning", "alt":""}}]] Behind the scenes: "Charlotte" runs from a building that is not burning. The team made it look as though it was on fire for the trailer using Adobe After Effects. Cool, huh?   Jocelyn: Well I was more than pretty happy with it--I was thrilled. It was one of the first things I noticed. Were there any surprises or challenges that you encountered during the filming? Phil: I'm don't know if there were any surprises, but the heat was certainly a challenge. We filmed the trailer in mid July and the costumes, save for a couple of the dresses, were made of heavy wool. We were fortunate to have beautiful days on which to film, but it meant that we were right under the sun for the outdoor shots and the indoor shots were filmed in house that has no air conditioning. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"926", "attributes":{"class":"media-image aligncenter wp-image-732", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"717", "height":"477", "title":"cameramen", "alt":""}}]] Jocelyn: That sounds like the way the characters experienced those scenes too--very hot, no air conditioning. Sweat is authentic. :) Now, last question. I’ve seen a lot of book trailers, some more impressive than others. In your professional opinion, what makes a trailer effective? Phil: A trailer is not supposed to tell you everything. A trailer is supposed to entice you. It is supposed to show you something indicative without spelling things out for you. I think a good trailer, be it for a film or a book, knows when to stop. It invites you, but it doesn't let you in. Jocelyn: Thank you so much, Phil, for your work on the trailer and for taking the time to answer all my questions! For more information about Mothlight Creative, visit the Web site here. BONUS: Book cover photo shoots are something else I find very interesting. We haven't done that for my books, but if you want to know a little about how it's done, check out this blog post from Joanne Bischof about the cover for her book Be Still, My Soul. Also super fun is this music video by Brandon Hill of two historical book cover photo shoots. Just so cool. And finally, a behind the scenes post on the cover shoot for Laura Frantz's upcoming book, Love's Awakening. [[{"type":"media", "view_mode":"media_large", "fid":"927", "attributes":{"class":"media-image wp-image-741", "typeof":"foaf:Image", "style":"", "width":"672", "height":"378", "title":"Screen Shot 2012-06-29 at 2 22 18 PM", "alt":""}}]] Parting shot from trailer  

On Sept. 11, 2001, I was a 23-year-old single woman working in Washington, D.C., just eight blocks from the Capitol. We were in a staff meeting when the receptionist on duty burst into the conference room and blurted out, “They hit the Pentagon, you can see the smoke from the rooftop!” The woman beside me screamed (I learned later she knew a man who worked there), and I quietly fought the rising tide of panic swelling inside my chest. Public transportation shut down and phone lines were scrambled. We were told another plane was headed for us (likely the one that crash landed in Pennsylvania). We were sitting ducks, and we knew it. There was no safe place to go. Throngs of people were streaming out of the buildings on Capitol Hill, running over each other to go who knows where- to get their children out of schools, to find their spouses, to go home. Fighter jets roared over the city, drowning out the sounds of chirping birds and casting ominous shadows on this otherwise cloudless blue-sky day. Rumors were reported as news on the television. We heard that a car bomb detonated at the State Department, that the Fourteenth Street bridge had been blown up (which was our way to get across the Potomac River and get home). It seemed the whole world was falling down around us. The bustling capital of our nation became a ghost town as people left, thousands of them on foot. That afternoon we came together as a staff to pray. One woman quoted Scripture in her prayer: “Weeping remains for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5).  I remember thinking, How long will this night last before we feel joy again? The Pentagon was less than a mile from my home in Arlington. I passed through it twice a day, up until that point, to catch a bus or a subway train. The attack on the Pentagon was an attack on my neighborhood. I felt violated. It was personal to me. Driving home that evening (for some reason I chose not to use the metro system that morning) we passed by the Pentagon. The smoke from the fires was choking, even from inside the car with the windows rolled up. Fires still blazed, and would for at least a week- they kept reigniting themselves. That evening, I took a break from watching the news and decided to mow the lawn. But this tragic event wasn’t something I could just turn off, when I turned off the TV. For as I pushed the lawnmower across the grass, I walked through clouds of swirling ash that had carried on the wind from the Pentagon. The air outside my home—my home—smelled like smoke for at least a week. Is it any wonder this attack felt personal to me? It happened in my back yard. I felt sick to my stomach for three days and cried until the well ran dry. But at no point did I question the existence of God or have a crisis of faith. God was still God. And I still trusted Him. The terrorist attacks were evidence that we live in a fallen world alongside other sinners. And even as I mourned for those who lost their lives, and mourned for those of us who lost their sense of safety in their own country, I recognized that this was not the first time a terrorist had attacked. In certain parts of the world, terrorism occurs on a regular basis. How insanely selfish would it be for me to be OK with God while evil happens in other countries, but once it comes to my doorstep, to shake my fist at Him. No, my faith did not suffer, but my sense of peace did. A dark cloud settled over my spirit in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001. My enemy did not have a face: it was grief and fear. People I used to ride the bus to the Pentagon with, I never saw again. I stared at the vacant seats while we silently snaked our way through traffic, wondering about their families, wondering if they knew Jesus and were in heaven, or not. Every radio station talked about bomb shelters, anthrax, and other possible methods of terrorism. We rolled our windows down while driving over bridges, so if the bridge blew up while we were on it, we could escape the car while it sank in the river. Standing in the subway station waiting for my train to come, we heard what seemed like an explosion not too far from us. I locked eyes with a stranger. No doubt we were both just as startled, both thinking about how dangerous a subway station could be if a terrorist chose to attack it. In moments like those we were no longer just fellow commuters, we were fellow Americans, bracing ourselves against our fears even as we tried to live life as normal. I know it sounds dramatic, but those were dramatic times. Two weeks after the terrorist attacks, I went to a prayer meeting at a local church. I sat in a hard wooden pew, head in my hands when I heard floorboards near me squeak.  When  I looked up I saw a girl I went to college with! Here she was, looking so out of place in that somber church, with her eyes dancing and one hand covering her mouth to keep from giggling. Since I was her RA in college, we weren’t really friends then, but when I saw her then we hugged and stepped out of the church and into the sunshine together. She had been working for her Congressman but wasn’t allowed back to work because of the anthrax scare (and clean-up) for weeks. So we had coffee together. Then a meal. Then I was going with her on all kinds of trips – Mount Vernon, Annapolis, the Smithsonian museums, outdoor concerts at Wolftrap. Even after she was allowed back at work, the friendship continued. We went to New York City together.  We organized monthly classic Movie Nights for other single women in the area. We hosted Thanksgiving for a dozen singles who had no place else to go. The dark cloud hanging over me lifted, and this friend helped me to chase after joy, to grab hold of it and not let go. We still knew life was forever different. I still walked past the National Guard with their weapons on my walk from the subway station to work every day. But I learned that I could still laugh and enjoy the good gifts God gives us. Life was still full of my favorite things. Joy came in the morning. The terrorist attacks were intended to cause a crippling fear to take root in our country. But you know what? I saw Bible studies pop up in the offices of Senators and Congressmen where God’s name was not mentioned before. I saw people reaching out to each other. We prayed more. Terrorism was met with heroism. And what man intended for evil, God used for good. I later learned that a man I went to church with had been in his office at the Pentagon directly above where the plane hit the building. He should not have lived, but God spared his life, and after he retired from military service he went into full-time ministry as a church pastor. Another man I went to church with, Brian Birdwell, was standing just two car-lengths from the point of impact in the Pentagon. He was burned over 60 percent of his body. He should not have survived either, but he did, miraculously, and now he has a ministry for burn victims, both civilian and military.  There are countless other stories of God’s hand during and after 9-11-01. Years later, I shared several of them in a book I co-wrote called Stories of Faith and Courage from the Home Front. Being a Christian doesn’t mean we don’t experience pain. It means our story doesn’t end there. Joy comes in the morning—however long the night may be. O Lord, you hear the desire of the afflicted; you will strengthen their heart; you will incline you ear to do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more. Psalm 10:17-18 ESV Would you like to share your 9-11 story? I would love to hear it. Please leave a comment.