PATRIOTS

A Short Novel

By Charles Deemer

Synopsis and chapter outline

 

 

Synopsis

 

High school sweethearts Claire and Archie experience the slow deterioration of their marriage after Archie’s National Guard unit is activated and sent to Iraq. Archie discovers how much he likes the Army, deciding to make it a career; and Claire learns that she cannot be an Army wife. The new environment changes each in a way that cannot support their marriage.

 

Chapter outline

 

  1. Archie and his National Guard unit are training in Eastern Oregon. He loves the feel of being a warrior.

 

  1. Claire, his wife and a high school math teacher, confides to a colleague that she is nervous about Archie’s unit being activated to Iraq. It is spring, 1993.

 

  1. After training, Archie and his brother-in-law, Hal, hang out together and Hal confesses that he, too, is worried about going to Iraq. Archie, however, would consider it his sacred duty.

 

  1. Claire goes to a club to hear her sister, Kelly, a jazz singer, perform. During a break, Kelly confesses that she’s been having an affair with her drummer.

 

  1. Archie’s unit gets sudden news: they’ve been activated. Archie phones Claire with the news, and she breaks down.

 

  1. Claire and Kelly visit their parents’ grave. Kelly says she’ll break up with the drummer in order to be there for Hal now. Claire is still shocked, in a daze.

 

  1. Archie finds a new spirit in his outfit now that they are going to Iraq – except for a few, including Hal.

 

  1. Claire visits Archie’s mother, Helen, in an assisted living facility. Helen was an Army wife, and Claire is curious about how one gets through the rough times. At school, Claire’s gay colleague and friend, Nicole, tells Claire about the possibility of Archie being exempted because of his mother’s poor health. Claire gets excited.

 

  1. Archie and Hal drive home from training early in order to get ready to ship out. When Archie arrives, the house is empty.

 

  1. Claire is at an after-school party of teachers. A new teacher, Duncan, corners her and tells her about how Iraq is another Vietnam, which upsets Claire.

 

  1. Archie is waiting for Claire when she returns. After their “homecoming,” she immediately tells him about the possibility of getting out of going to Iraq. Archie is shocked. Of course he’ll go. It’s his duty.

 

  1. Claire wakes up to an empty bed, empty house. She is worried and calls her sister. But Archie isn’t there.

 

  1. Archie visits his mother. He tells her that Claire is having a hard time adjusting.

 

  1. In their marriage, sex is oil for the squeaky wheel: and they make love when Archie comes home. But at a dinner party with Kelly and Hal, Claire bursts into tears when Kelly says she’s reserved the Elks Club for a going away party.

 

  1. Archie tries to tell Claire how much her moral support is important to him. Claire promises to try.

 

  1. The next morning, Archie has her breakfast waiting. He is being especially nice. At school, Duncan gives Claire his phone number and offers to be a handy man for her after Archie ships out. Claire is almost repulsed by the offer.

 

  1. The party at the Elks Club. Archie gives an inspired patriotic speech. Claire manages to smile through the evening.

 

  1. They have unusually hot sex after the party. The next day Archie jokes that he should go to war more often. Claire doesn’t appreciate the joke.

 

  1. Archie and Hal drive to Portland to join up with their unit. The goodbyes are painful and awkward.

 

  1. Kelly wants Claire to join a Military Wives Support Group with her. Claire says she’ll think about it.

 

  1. Archie and Hal fly to Fort Bliss, Texas, for more training. At the Enlisted Men’s Club, Hal confesses that he thinks Kelly has been having an affair. Archie can’t believe it.

 

  1. At school, Duncan hits on Claire again. Archie phones from Texas – it’s a strained call, Claire having a hard time keeping it together.

 

  1. Archie sends Claire an email, giving all the details of his training. In a return email, Claire says she’d rather not get the details, which upset her.

 

  1. Claire is visited by ladies from the Military Wives Support Group. She is polite.

 

  1. Archie and Hal begin training. Archie notices that Hal is not a very good soldier and reprimands him to get it together. This is the real thing, weekend warriors no more.

 

  1. Claire is visited by her sister, and Kelly is furious. Archie called her on Hal’s behalf, that Hal needs her love and support.

 

  1. Claire sends Archie an email, reprimanding him for getting involved in her sister’s affairs.

 

  1. Nicole asks Claire out for a drink. Nicole’s lover has left her and she needs a shoulder to cry on. On the way home, Claire passes a homeless vet she has seen many times before. This time, she stops and gives him a job mowing her lawn.

 

  1. Claire gets an email from Archie, who is shocked and upset that she’s letting a homeless man onto their property. She knows nothing about him!

 

  1. Claire and Kelly attend a meeting of the Military Wives Support group.

 

  1. At Fort Bliss, their training is cut short so they can get to Iraq sooner. They are given time off, and Archie and Hal hit the G.I. Bars in El Paso. Hal goes off with a Mexican prostitute.

 

  1. Mike, the homeless vet, comes by to mow Claire’s lawn. First he picks the lock on the shed because Claire can’t find the key. Claire has never met anyone who could pick a lock. Claire offers him the summer job of mowing the lawn every two weeks.

 

  1. Archie phones to tell Claire he is about to ship out to Iraq early, to Basra. When she tells him she let the homeless vet mow the lawn, Archie gets furious. Their call is strained.

 

  1. Claire visits Archie’s mother and tells her about his orders to Basra. Helen, to Claire’s shock, says Archie must be disappointed, he’d have wanted to go to Baghdad where the action is.

 

  1. Claire sends Archie an email, confused and upset about why he would want to go where the greatest danger is.

 

  1. At Fort Bliss, Archie stops Hal from going AWOL.

 

  1. End of school, and Claire empties out her classroom. At the faculty party, Nicole gets very drunk. Claire takes her home with her to let her sleep it off. During the night, Nicole makes sexual advances, which Claire rejects.

 

  1. Archie phones and Nicole answers. What the hell is going on? He gets Claire and tries to calm her down about Baghdad. You go where they send you in the Army. He himself has nothing to do with it.

 

  1. Claire drives Nicole to her car. Duncan comes by, asking about Nicole, and Claire brushes him off.

 

  1. The end of training at Fort Bliss. Archie has a hard time reaching Claire by phone.

 

  1. Archie finally gets Claire the day before shipping out. Claire pledges her moral support. She’ll be a good Army wife. But this isn’t easy to say.

 

  1. On the last night at Fort Bliss, Archie leads other drunken soldiers to capture lightning bugs to send to Claire. She’s never seen them.

 

  1. Claire has a small nervous breakdown after Archie ships out.

 

  1. They land in Kuwait, and Archie is assigned to a team, Hal to another. Archie feels a new bonding with his team. He feels like a warrior, a good feeling.

 

  1. Claire sends Archie an email. The jars of lightning bugs arrived – but they were all dead.

 

  1. Driving through a park, Claire sees Mike, the homeless vet, rooting through garbage cans. She wonders where he lives. Seeing him again later, she parks and follows him to a camp in the woods above the park. What she sees shocks her.

 

  1. Archie starts a war journal, summarizing war stories from the Stars & Stripes newspaper.

 

  1. Claire gets the nerve to ask Mike about his life. He says he tramps with Pete, his partner, and they manage to do okay. Claire feels a vague admiration for his resourcefulness.

 

  1. Archie is bored by their duty in Basra, which is mostly guard duty. Meanwhile, he continues his war journal, feeling envious of those seeing action.

 

  1. Eugene is hit with an unseasonable rainstorm. Claire worries about Mike’s situation in bad weather. Kelly comes over with a shocking admission: she slept with Duncan.

 

  1. Archie continues his war journal.

 

  1. Kelly and Nicole become activists against the war. When Claire learns that Mike and his partner will be leaving the area soon for warmer fall and winter weather, she offers them dry sleeping room in the shed. Mike accepts.

 

  1. Archie’s convoy hits a bomb in the road. Archie is fine but Hal, in a different humvee, is injured.

 

  1. Claire’s neighbors don’t like her letting homeless men sleep in the shed. Nicole alerts Claire that Kelly is drunk at their usual hangout. Going to rescue her, Claire learns from Kelly that Hal has been shot.

 

  1. Archie continues his war journal. After the bomb, more than ever, he longs to see action.

 

  1. Nicole tries to recruit Claire to march against the war on the 4th of July. A wide variety of opinions are represented by marchers. Claire thinks about it. If she marched, her sign would read, BRING MY HUSBAND HOME ALIVE!

 

  1. Archie continues his war journal.

 

  1. Archie is called off guard duty. His mother had died. He begins the long process to go home on emergency leave.

 

  1. Archie’s sister, Diane, gets to town first to handle affairs after Helen’s death. Claire decides to march after all, her sign reading DO BETTER! On the march, Claire feels surprising unity and camaraderie with the marchers.

 

  1. Archie gets home on the 4th of July, while Claire is off marching. He enters the house to discover they’ve been robbed. Everything of value is gone. In the garage, he discovers various protest signs, ones that Claire had made as she looked for the right one. Archie is outraged.

 

  1. Claire returns home, and they have their confrontation. Claire tries to convince Archie that being against policy is not being against the troops, but Archie won’t hear it. He leaves to get a motel room. That night Archie phones. He tells Claire he is going to reenlist and make the Army his career. This seals their separation.

 

  1. On his way back to Iraq, Archie visits Hal in the hospital. A new distance has grown between them over the war. Archie understands that his new family is the Army.

 

  1. Claire wants to form a new kind of protest group, of military spouses who both back their husbands but disagree with policy. She gets very few takers, not even Kelly, who has become a peace activist.

 

  1. Months later, Claire gets a call from Archie. He’s in town, Grand Marshall of the Veterans Day Parade after getting shot in Iraq. He wants to come by and pick up his belongings. Thus they have their final meeting, which is cordial, polite – but also demonstrative of the two very different people they have become. Each, in their own way, a patriot.

 

END