Playing Army

It’s 1995 and the Army units of Fort Stewart, Georgia are gearing up to deploy to Bosnia, but Lieutenant Minerva Mills has no intention of going to war-torn eastern Europe. Her father disappeared in Vietnam and, desperate for some kind of connection to him, she’s  determined to go on a long-promised tour to Asia. But the Colonel will only release her on two conditions—that she reform the rag-tag Headquarters Company so they’re ready for the peacekeeping mission, and that she get her weight within Army regs, whichever comes second...

Min only has one summer to kick everyone’s butts into shape but the harder she plays Army, the more the soldiers—and her body—rebel. If she can’t even get the other women on her side, much less lose those eight lousy pounds, she’ll never have another chance to stand where her father once stood in Vietnam, feeling what he felt. The Colonel may sweep her along to Bosnia or throw her out of the Army altogether. Can you fake it until you make it? Min is about to find out.

read an excerpt...

My heart raced, not in a good way, as a helicopter thudded overhead toward Hunter Army Airfield twenty miles away. Had my father died in a helicopter assault? The notification only said he’d gone missing in a fire fight, but he’d been assigned to the air cavalry. He hadn’t

been a movie star like Robert Duvall in Apocalypse Now, though—just another Air Cav soldier who disappeared in the Mekong Delta in April of 1969. I imagined myself crouched backward over the skids of a Huey. Terrified, with the sound of AK-47s firing below and nothing to connect me to safety but a nylon rope. Nothing but the empty black maw of my ignorance waiting to swallow me whole. You would think, if my father had been liked and respected, the soldiers from his platoon would have responded to the letters I’d written but no one ever had, leaving me only questions so corrosive my insides burned.

It was strange how the absence of a person could occupy so much mental real estate, but the Army—all of America, really—was obsessed with the bodies of the soldiers left behind. The dead were probably at peace—I had to believe that—but those who remained were not. For me, nothing but boots on the ground in Vietnam would satisfy my relentless drive to understand, and Korea was the closest place to Vietnam the Army would send me.

 about Nancy Stroer...

Nancy Stroer grew up in a very big family in a very small house in Athens, Georgia and served in the beer-soaked trenches of post-Cold War Germany. She holds degrees from Cornell and Boston University, and her work has appeared in the Stars and Stripes, Soldiers magazine, Hallaren Lit Mag, Wrath-Bearing Tree, and Things We Carry Still, an anthology of military writing from Middle West Press.

 She’s a teacher and a trainer, and an adjunct faculty member of the Ellyn Satter Institute, a 503(c) not-for-profit that helps individuals and families develop a more joyful relationship to food and their bodies. Playing Army is her first novel.

 Social media links:

https://twitter.com/Nancy_Stroer

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/49311942.Nancy_Stroer

https://www.facebook.com/nancy.stroer/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancy-stroer-86213089/

more interesting "stuff" about Nancy Stroer...

What group did you hang out with in high school?

I wasn’t in the top tier of popular kids – that was strictly the realm of cheerleaders and football players and random rich kids who had nice cars. I had lots of friends but I still consider high school to have been my personal dark ages. Being well-liked in those days came at the cost of playing down one’s intellectual side. Plenty of smart kids were popular, but it was just an interesting characteristic and not the *reason* they were popular. Mostly you had to be goodlooking and good at sports or a snappy dresser to fit in, and keep your interest in learning on the down low. I looked like I was fitting in but I was pretty miserable. Probably we all were? Or most of us, for different reasons? I’m still in touch with a lot of people from high school, and I’m glad to report that we all seem much more relaxed and confident now.

What are you passionate about these days?

Gardening! I inherited a dilapidated public allotment a couple of years ago and have been slowly rehabilitating it – digging out a million nettles, creating beds, planting a few things here and there to see what works, and gradually things are taking shape. I have a lot of birds that keep me company out there, but mostly, gardening is my peace. I’m such a sucker for watching something grow, and feel so pleased and awed when something I’ve put in the ground takes off. It’s just small miracles in action. I love it.

If you had to do your journey to getting published all over again, what would you do differently?

Well, I’ve learned so much as I’ve stumbled along, so I guess not? But I will be MUCH more informed about the process as I go forward, let me just say that right now.

Ebook or print? And why?

Oh, I love the feel of a good trade paperback in my hand. I like ebooks, too! I was surprised at how easy I found it to read on the screen, once I started using online libraries to download books. But I love physical books so much. They are beautiful, they smell good, they’re perfect for leaving in piles all around the house. Love them.

What is your favorite scene in this book?

There’s a memory Minerva returns to, of a time that her mother dressed in Min’s father’s old Army uniform and took her to a Father-Daughter Dance. It’s kind of funny but mostly tragic, and I think it stands in for so much that happens in Min’s relationship with her mother, and also her relationships with the other women she encounters in the story.

 

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