In The Remains of the Corps: Volume I: Ivy & The Crossing, I introduce eighty-one new characters in significant detail.
Fifty-seven of these characters, along with the fictional Lt. Kenneth Remain, make up the fictional Fourth Platoon of the fictional 87th Company of the nonfictional 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment.
The other twenty-four characters, along with the historical figure, Major Burton W. Sibley, and the fictional Lieutenants Kenneth Remain and Lawrence Blakeslee, make up the fictional officer corps of the nonfictional 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment.
While virtually all of the Marines depicted in The Remains of the Corps: Volume I are fictional, they exemplify a generation of Americans that practiced volunteerism the likes of which we are unlikely to see again. They shouldn’t be forgotten, and in The Remains of the Corps, they are not.
The ferocious twenty-six day Battle of Belleau Wood is one of the most famous battles in United States Marine Corps history. The Marine Brigade (which included the 3rd of the 6th) that fought at and around Belleau Wood suffered more than 4,600 casualties: more than 1,000 killed and more than 3,600 gassed or wounded. To the world, one hundred years later, the Marines who fought and died there, except for a few celebrated heroes, are just statistics. But to their families, they were much more than that. They were living, breathing, sons, brothers, and husbands who were, for the most part young, and who had their whole lives in front of them when they marched off to a war that was not theirs. All suffered and sacrificed, and some made the ultimate sacrifice.
I believe readers are more likely to develop an abiding interest in characters when they are aware of important particularities about their existences, especially when they have lived full (albeit brief) and interesting lives. This is particularly true when the characters are at risk -- creating the prospect of an acute sense of loss for the reader.