A note close to home

“A note close to home”

It is a time of great loss for my battalion, and with the great loss comes great sorrow, my dear. Hitler's war machine has steamed its way across Europe, and there is but no end for the war in sight. I write to you for I have but no memories of you my sweet. It is a tragedy so, but the cauldron that stews in my mind has churned out everything but the images of my fellow men, strewn across the river valley. It is sinful in a way to tell you this love, but I feel that reassurance will have to wait, for that would be but a lie. Nothing compares to the gore I have witnessed, nobody will remember me back home perhaps you, and my life will have been for nothing, if I didn’t try my damndest. My hand shakes as i write to you my sweet, with all the love in the world, not even the Nazi’s could take that away. We’ve heard of a relief effort coming our way, but their arrival missed days ago, and there has been no word since their last call… A difficult time it is, and a maddening one at that, with day after day of delusions and paranoia. I dread the days to follow for I wonder the nature of future engagements and their certain bloody outcomes. All those promises of glory, that war is something to shape a man up, deceit and lies to the fullest.. Painstakingly hard it is to believe that this is happening, while so many of us have gone, they’d be gone a minute by and mourning waits for them like shadow. It disappears and the grief is cut loose for them in no time. Prayers are said at night before we lay down, as we check our surroundings for evening come and wonder what dawn will bring forth. Sorrow hits us all, and some of us go mad in dreadful silence, noticeably the younger ones first… left from the womb too early they were. Soldiers we aren’t yet, but merely distractions for the german occupation. It is with great remorse that we lay here with, day after day. Day by day, until we drift away…

Corporal “Winter” Duggins Recovered 1945
1943, Battle of the Bulge Directed to Mrs. Duggins