Todd Vance, 28, is Nicholas Sparks’ cousin, the author of Dear John. Vance said Sparks based the novel-turned-film on his life while serving in the United States Army.

“There a few things he [Sparks] changed to make the story more interesting, but it is a pretty accurate depiction of what really happened,” said Vance.

The film is set in South Carolina where John is on leave from the army, meets a girl, and falls in love. The two are inseparable and continue dating and writing letters to each other, though he deploys back to Germany and she goes back to school.

“I came home on leave for two weeks and met a girl on the beach,” said Vance. “We spent every minute together and wrote to each other after I left.”

Vance, a San Diego native, enlisted with the Army in 1999, where he served as a Squad Leader in the Army Infantry as well as the 3rd Striker Brigade. Prior to Sept. 11, he had four months left on his contract, but re-enlisted and served in the war that ensued.

“We flew to Kuwait, and then the striker unit drove to northern Iraq,” said Vance.

While the romance follows Vance’s life more closely, the combat scenes are portrayed quite differently.

“In the movie John is in the Special Forces, which I was not,” Vance said. “He is also shot twice in the back. I was never shot, but pieces of metal flew into my back after a grenade explosion.”

In the film, while he is in combat, John learns that his dad is dying, and is sent back home to be with him, which is similar to the happenings in Vance’s life.

“My step-dad had a cyst behind his pancreas and had surgery to have it removed,” he said. “He passed from complications with the surgery.”

While this happens when John is in combat, Vance says it actually happened when he was on his two-week leave in San Diego, when he initially met his girlfriend.

The movie also shows John being broken up with in a final letter his girlfriend sends him telling him she’s engaged to someone else.

“My girlfriend never cheated on me, we stayed together the whole time,” said Vance.

Vance was let out of the Army in 2005, and came back home to San Diego, where he returned to his girlfriend, though they broke up after his homecoming.

“Being away from each other was really tough, and it created a lot of tension,” he said. “I also had a lot to deal with and it didn’t make the relationship work.”

In the end of the movie, John and his ex-girlfriend reunite after he comes back home, but similar to real life, the couple did not stay together in the movie.