Truth is Stranger Than Fiction: Stories About Real Heroes

Our guest post comes from Terry Odell’s blog (visit her blog). Author Sharon Hamilton wrote this post for Terry’s site. We hope you enjoy.

Truth is Stranger Than Fiction: Stories About Real Heroes

Today I’m pleased to host author Sharon Hamil­ton, who is going to give us some insight into writ­ing mil­i­tary hero sto­ries, Navy SEALs, in par­tic­u­lar. What makes these men so com­pelling to read about, to write about?

Hav­ing rel­a­tives in the U.S. Navy SEAL com­mu­nity gives me an advan­tage when it comes to writ­ing romance using those char­ac­ters. But I have to chuckle a bit after mak­ing this point. I’ve actu­ally had to alter the sto­ries I’ve been told to make my fic­tional char­ac­ters seem LESS fan­tas­tic, over the top, unbelievable.

I’m prob­a­bly not the only writer who has had her work cri­tiqued by some­one who makes the com­ment, “that would never hap­pen,” when we’ve had first-hand expe­ri­ences iden­ti­cal to what we’ve writ­ten. In doing research for my Navy SEAL series, I had to chance some of the accounts, or no one would believe them.

But along­side the fan­tas­tic comes the silly or com­mon. Beside every war­rior are those fam­ily mem­bers who love them, or try to love them. They go to bal­let classes with their daugh­ters, wash laun­dry, wear Bat­man paja­mas and wear Super­hero under­wear when they go out on mis­sions in some pretty scary places. At home, they mow the lawn, paint the house and roll around on the liv­ing room floor and play “woo-dee-do” with their dogs.

I like the mix­ture of the strong silent hero who is also very human. I’ve enjoyed writ­ing about vam­pires and dark guardian angels, and all their spe­cial body parts that do amaz­ing things. But there is some­thing so fun and absolutely thrilling about writ­ing about Navy SEALs, those com­mon every day men of steel who have that soft side, and some­times a blind side, espe­cially when it comes to love.

Some stats you may not know. There are only about 2000 SEALs. The chances a reg­u­lar Navy sailor would get to try out for the Teams are one in 1000. It is not uncom­mon to have a fail­ure rate in the BUD/S classes of 90%. A man wouldn’t know that he couldn’t tol­er­ate a HALO (High Alti­tude) jump at mid­night, or that he had a prob­lem get­ting free from under 20 feet of water tied to a chair with­out oxy­gen, until he tried it. Doesn’t mean he isn’t strong, have a warrior’s heart and soul. He’s a hero for even con­sid­er­ing it in the first place.

I’ve been told sto­ries about strate­gies for pass­ing the gru­el­ing train­ing, and most of the time, these “tools” are proven false. This can cause panic. There is such a thing as being overly pre­pared. In the end, every­thing is stripped away. Hes­i­ta­tion is drummed out of them. A lot of the bravado is wiped clean. Not to say there aren’t huge egos in this com­mu­nity, but they’ve learned to keep it in check in pub­lic. At the end of their train­ing, they will do what­ever has to be done, even at the cost of their own life. Most impor­tantly, they would be will­ing to die for each other with­out a moment’s thought.

For the first time in two decades, instruc­tors who have them­selves expe­ri­enced active com­bat sit­u­a­tions are train­ing our SEALs. It is also chill­ing to me to under­stand that every SEAL knows some­one who has fallen. It hasn’t always been the case in past years.

I’d be lying if I were to say I didn’t admire these brave young men. Though all my char­ac­ters are fic­tion­al­ized com­pos­ites of peo­ple I’ve met or been told about, their com­mu­nity and their broth­er­hood is some­thing good and true I attempt to accu­rately por­tray. Because each man has his own per­sonal jour­ney he must fol­low, there are thou­sands of sto­ries yet to tell.

And that thrills me to no end.

What about you? Do you read mil­i­tary romance? What do you find com­pelling about a mil­i­tary hero? What about mil­i­tary heroes do you find the most interesting?