by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

Memorial Day Weekend. Across this land of ours, barbecues will be firing, grill masters will be grilling, hot dogs and hamburgers will be sizzling, beers will be pouring, flags will be waving, and kids will be playing. I do hope that some of that time will be used to educate our young charges about the meaning of Memorial Day.

Its roots go back to the Civil War, when people honored the dead by decorating their graves with flowers and wreaths. After the war, by proclamation, May 30 was selected as “Decoration Day.” By the end of the 19th century it was also being referred to as Memorial Day. Congress adopted that latter designation and made the last Monday in May the official holiday.

I get choked up about heroic deeds in time of war. The earliest Bell ancestor on these shores was William Bell, born in County Armagh, Ireland. He came to America in the 1760s and settled in Philadelphia, opening a tailor shop. During the Revolutionary War, when Washington’s army was holed up in Valley Forge, William made an officer’s uniform for his brother, John, who was serving with Washington.

But there was a problem. Philadelphia was under British control, with sentinels carefully guarding ingress and egress. This made it almost impossible to get food or clothing to Valley Forge, some thirty miles away.

John Bell’s wife took care of the problem.

As William worked on the clothing, John’s wife established herself as a woman going about her daily business. Dressed in sunbonnet and shawl, she would walk by the British sentinel,  carrying basket of sundries, and return with groceries and other good. When the uniform was finished, she sewed it between her skirts and petticoats. She passed by with her basket once again, without incident, just like it was another day. Only this time she kept on going, walking the thirty miles to Valley Forge, to deliver food and the uniform to her husband.

My great-great grandfather, James Winfield Scott, fought under Sherman during the Civil War. My grandfather, Arthur Scott Bell, was in the Army in World War I. His brother-in-law, my great uncle Frederick Hamilton Fox, was a Marine. He died in the Battle of Belleau Wood, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

The book I’m proudest of (because it is the longest book I ever wrote and required the most work) is Glimpses of Paradise. It begins in 1916 Nebraska and ends in 1920s Hollywood. In between is a World War I sequence.

But I’ve never been in battle. Which raises a natural question: how do you write about experiences you’ve never had? Here’s what I did: 

1. Extensive reading. I found some books deep inside the downtown branch of the Los Angeles Public Library that were priceless, first-hand accounts of World War I battles. I also spent hours in the microfiche room, going through newspaper accounts of same.
2. I connected my emotions. I believe that if we’ve made it past forty or so in this life, we’ve experienced every emotion there is to a greater or lesser degree. While I have never felt the fear that a soldier feels on the eve of battle, I have felt the fear of dying. The same physiological response is there, and by extrapolation I brought it to the characters in the book.
3. I looked at a lot of pictures of battlefields, soldiers, weapons and so on. I wanted to be soaked in them, so I could write with a “lived” feeling.
4. I had an expert review it. I showed the battle pages to someone who knows warfare, and got some notes for changes.

I believe a writer should be free to write about any kind of character or experience, so long as they make the effort to get things right. What about you?