What If YOUR Child Was Drafted? Claudia Hinz on War, Veterans & SAFEKEEPING

What would happen if war stopped being something happening somewhere else—and suddenly came directly to your family?

In this powerful episode of The MisFitNation, Rich LaMonica sits down with author and former television reporter Claudia Hinz, whose debut novel SAFEKEEPING imagines a near-future America where the military draft has returned.

Set in 2027, SAFEKEEPING follows Tenley Ward, a wealthy Dallas mother whose 19-year-old son receives a low draft lottery number and is suddenly facing military service. Desperate to protect him, Tenley launches MOMS — Mothers Opposing More Senselessness, an anti-draft movement that grows from one mother's fear into a national force. As the movement gains momentum, the consequences reach deep into her marriage, family, identity, and relationship with Leland “Privately” Marks, a young Marine veteran carrying the emotional weight of combat.

But this conversation goes far beyond the pages of a novel.

Claudia and Rich explore the uncomfortable questions that surface when patriotism, protest, service, privilege, motherhood, and war collide.

Can someone passionately support veterans while opposing the war they were sent to fight?

Would Americans think differently about military conflict if their own sons and daughters could be drafted?

And after service members come home, are we truly prepared to understand what they experienced—or do we too often reduce their stories to “thank you for your service” and move on?

Claudia shares how her fascination with these questions began in childhood, when her father hosted Vietnam veterans and POW/MIA families in their home. She remembers listening to their conversations and recognizing, even as a child, that some families bore an enormous burden while others remained largely untouched by war. Later, as a television reporter, she covered military stories from bases in California, Texas, and Washington.

One image would eventually become a major creative spark for SAFEKEEPING: graffiti photographed at a Marine base in Ramadi declaring that while America continued with everyday life, Marines were the ones actually at war. In the interview, Claudia explains how that idea forced her to confront the divide between the people who serve and the much larger civilian population that can often remain distant from the consequences of conflict.

Rich brings his own combat-veteran perspective into the conversation as they discuss the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the treatment of Vietnam veterans, military families, reintegration after service, mental health, VA care, loss of purpose after leaving the military, and the responsibility Americans have to distinguish between the people sent to war and the political decisions that put them there.

This episode asks listeners to wrestle with some difficult questions:

Would a military draft bring Americans closer to understanding the true cost of war?

Can protest itself be an expression of patriotism?

How should civilians start more meaningful conversations with veterans?

What happens when someone leaves a highly purpose-driven military life and suddenly has to build an entirely new identity?

And perhaps the biggest question of all:

What would you do if the draft notice had your child's name on it?

SAFEKEEPING explores motherhood, activism, grief, privilege, desire, patriotism, veteran experience, the civilian-military divide, and the ripple effects of war far beyond the battlefield. Claudia's press materials describe the novel as a story designed to provoke conversations about who bears the burden of conflict and how families and communities are changed by it.

Connect with Claudia Hinz

Website: www.claudiahinz.net

Instagram: @claudiahinzauthor

Connect with The MisFitNation

Visit www.themisfitnation.com for more conversations with veterans, first responders, authors, leaders, advocates, and people sharing stories that challenge the way we see the world.

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