The Real Events That Shaped the Story
Growing up, I knew my grandfather served in the Second World War, but he never provided any details. Like most veterans of that conflict, he would speak of it when asked, but never brought it up in everyday conversation. Even though he sometimes said he hated the Army, his service defined him for the rest of his life. He attended every reunion he could until the year before he died. He kept his Combat Infantryman’s Badge framed next to his desk at home. He was buried with military honors. I still have the flag that draped his coffin, preserved in a display box in my office.
A couple of months before I started In the Ashes, my mother handed me a binder with his handwritten notes and photos from the war. For the first time, I had a detailed account of his combat experiences between 1944 and 1945.
After arriving in Europe he saw some of the worst fighting of the war. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge. His unit captured the Remagen Bridge over the Rhine. He fought his way across Germany and, with his friends, witnessed the horrors of the concentration camps.
But he never spoke about the fighting. He didn’t want to. He didn’t need to. That was the way of his generation. They came home and tried to live the rest of their lives in peace.
There is a mountain of stories from World War II that need telling. This book is one small attempt to show current generations what men like my grandfather experienced. I chose to write it as fiction. Like Tim O’Brien’s, The Things They Carried, I believe fiction can capture not only the facts of past events, but the emotions of the people who lived through them. It is impossible to understand war unless you can feel what those who fought it felt. That requires fictional dialogue and character development. I didn’t just want readers to know my grandfather’s story. I wanted them to feel it. That is why In the Ashes is written the way it is.
The result is a work of fiction in which some things are real and others are not. Every incident happened in some form. [SPOILER ALERT] The moment on the bridge where Eddie shoots the old man is taken directly from my grandfather’s notes. Other passages are composites drawn from his recollections and those of other veterans.
Eddie Hoskins is based on my grandfather, though I gave him a few traits from other personalities. His physical description and reserved demeanor are accurate. Grandpa chewed Red Man tobacco almost until the day he died.
The other members of the squad passed away many years ago. I never had a chance to interview them. Their emotions, motivations, and behaviors are not meant to reflect their true personalities. Though reasonable and logical, the confrontations and arguments in the story are entirely fictional. I know they all served honorably and attended reunions with my grandfather for decades. They were lifelong friends. They were all heroes.
The quest is fictional. I needed an inciting incident that created a realistic moral catalyst with real emotional stakes. The concentration camp plot line allowed me to incorporate more of my grandfather’s notes and memories. He was there. He saw what they Nazis did. He took photos and left them for me. The Holocaust was real.
I could offer more details, but I will leave it to the reader to decide what to believe. I encourage everyone to do their own research—to discover the truth of the war, the sacrifices of the men who fought it, and the terrible cost inflicted by the Nazis.
I would like to believe the world learned a permanent lesson from that war. It did not. We have lost too many of these stories and too much of the real history of the Second World War. I hope we can rediscover those lessons before we make the same mistakes again.
BONUS:
About the Book:
As the German Reich collapses in fire and chaos, a squad of exhausted American infantrymen clears what remains of a Nazi concentration camp. What should be a final, grim duty turns into something far worse when they accidentally kill a Jewish prisoner.
With his last breath, the man begs them to save his wife, Elise, before the SS executes her in a nearby subcamp.
Most of the men want nothing to do with it. The war is nearly over. They’ve seen enough death. But one soldier cannot turn away—and his decision will drag the entire squad into an unauthorized race across a dying nation.
In the wreckage of a broken Reich, they must navigate a chaotic world filled with desperation and danger. Along the way they will discover how much humanity can still be salvaged… and how much it can cost.
Inspired by true accounts, In the Ashes is a gripping, unflinching novel of loyalty, guilt, and the final brutal choices of war.
