Fresh FIction Box Not To Miss
Diane Whiteside | Citizen Soldier
Romance / September 10, 2007

What do those two words mean, anyway? Strong, stalwart, dependable, intelligent, good in a fight. Oh, and definitely an alpha male – at least to a romance author! In fact, it sounds like an good list of things I’d want to find in a hero, doesn’t it? But when politicians talk about citizen-soldiers, they’re usually speaking about citizens who are about to leave their day jobs and go off to serve their country, probably to fight. That’s an extremely noble calling and I honor anyone who has done it. But hasn’t any such citizen-soldier also been changed – even hardened or scarred – by what he’s seen and done while he served his country? What interests me, as an author, is what happens when that citizen-soldier comes home and becomes more of a citizen than a soldier. I want to know how his military skills and personality blends into his peacetime world – for example, how he takes the strength and discipline he gained in the military into the civilian world, how his loved ones temper his cynicism, how he learns to sleep quietly at night again. It’s reassuring to know than an ex-soldier can still grab a gun and…