The 50 Greatest Letters from America's Wars

Rating:
Summary: Short work that is actually heartbreaking in parts
Review: How one chooses THE 50 GREATEST LETTERS FROM
AMERICA'S WARS must be a difficult task, but David H.
Lowenherz (the book's editor) has done it well . . . he has
selected a range of letters from the Revolution to the operations
in Afghanistan and presented them with fascinating commentary
about both the combat and the writer.

Presidents, ranging from George Washington to Dwight Eisenhower,
are included . . . but so are frontline soliders, nurses, prisoners of
war, generals, and even spies who I would have never heard of
until I read this short work that is actually hearbreaking in parts.

It is one thing to study history in the abstract . . . it is
another to hear stories--told in the first person--that have
actually been written to families, friends and sweethearts.

I recommend this book highly.

There were so many memorable passages in these letters that
it has made my job difficult; i.e., to present just a few for
your consideration . . . but I'll try, nevertheless . . . so please
consider, if you will:

(Captain Rodney R. Chastant to his parents from the Vietnam War)
Mom, I appreciate all the letters. I appreciate your concern that some
of the things you write about are trivial, but they aren't trivial to me.
I'm eager to read anything about what you are doing or the family is
doing. You can't understand the importance these "trivial" events take
on out here. It helps me keep civilized. For a while, as I read your
letters, I am a normal person. I'm not killing people, or worried about
being killed. While I read your letters, I'm not carrying guns and grenades.
Instead I am going ice skating with David or walking through a depart-
ment store to exchange a lamp shade. It is great to know your family's
safe, living in a secure country; a country made secure by thousands
upon thousands of men who have dies for that country.

(Fireman 1st class Keith Lynch to his family in World War II)
To think that a thirty-pound bomb the size of a basketball, exploding a
thousand feet in the air, could cause such a holocaust was simply
unbelievable. I shudder to think what these people underwent when
the blast occurred. A blast that literally dissolved their homes, family,
friends and any other material thing in the vicinity. A blast that pushed
over huge steel structures a mile and a half away as if they were made
of blocks. Now I can see what they mean when they say Dead City. A
city with no buildings, no trees, no facilities, and no people. All you see
from the top of the hill is a ground covered with bricks, burned wood,
twisted and pushed over steel frames of buildings for several miles in
each direction. There is nothing for the people of this Dead City to do
but walk around and think, "What manner of people would do such a
thing to us, who are a peaceful, courteous and civilized people?" I
wondered what they thought when they looked at us as we were
driving along. "Are these the barbarians who did such a thing to us?
What can we expect now that we are at their mercy?" I only wish they
could be made to suffer a tenth of the atrocities that they performed on
our men whom they held prisoner. People can say these people are
simple, ignorant of the facts, or under a spell, but a nation cannot wage
war as they have without the backing of the majority of their people.

(Major Sullivan Ballou to his wife in the Civil War)
The memories of the blissful moments I have spent with you come
creeping over me, and I feel most gratified to God and to you that I
have enjoyed them so long. And hard it is for me to give them up and
burn to ashes the hopes of future years, when God willing, we might
still have lived and loved together and seen our sons grow up to
honorable manhood around us. I have, I know, but few and small claims
upon Divine Providence, but something whispers to me-perhaps it is
the wafted prayer of my little Edgar-that I shall return to my loved ones
unharmed. If I do not, my dear Sarah, never forget how much I love
you, and when my last breath escapes me on the battlefield, it will
whisper your name.