Letters to a Soldier


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The letters between a young solider in Iraq and a class in Long Island




"The Good Soldier"


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War Letters


Book Description

In 1998, Andrew Carroll founded the Legacy Project, with the goal of remembering Americans who have served their nation and preserving their letters for posterity. Since then, over 50,000 letters have poured in from around the country. Nearly two hundred of them comprise this amazing collection -- including never-before-published letters that appear in the new afterword. Here are letters from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Persian Gulf war, Somalia, and Bosnia -- dramatic eyewitness accounts from the front lines, poignant expressions of love for family and country, insightful reflections on the nature of warfare. Amid the voices of common soldiers, marines, airmen, sailors, nurses, journalists, spies, and chaplains are letters by such legendary figures as Gen. William T. Sherman, Clara Barton, Theodore Roosevelt, Ernie Pyle, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Julia Child, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, and Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Sr. Collected in War Letters, they are an astonishing historical record, a powerful tribute to those who fought, and a celebration of the enduring power of letters.




"The Good Soldier", a Selection of Soldiers Letters


Book Description

This book is a powerful collection of letters written by soldiers throughout history, exploring the joys and struggles of military life. From the soldiers in the trenches of World War I to the American soldiers on the front lines in Vietnam, these letters offer a unique perspective on war and its impact on those who fight it. An essential read for history buffs and military enthusiasts alike. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.




A Letter Marked Free


Book Description

A Letter Marked Free is the true story of a young combat soldier on the battlefield in World War II as told through his letters home to his family. The letters powerfully portray life on the front lines and the vivid accounts reveal the intense hardships endured for the cause of freedom. Bob Lynch was nineteen and living in Rye, NY, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and served in the 3rd Infantry Division as a combat rifleman, light machine-gunner, and mortarman. Bob was wounded and missing in action (MIA) behind enemy lines for over 10 days. He received the Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Combat Infantryman Badge, along with many other honors. He participated in first-wave amphibious assault landings on Anzio, Italy, and St. Tropez, France, and accumulated an incredible 350 days in frontline combat. Bob was awarded the French Legion of Honor in January 2007 in recognition and gratitude for his role in the liberation of France. He received France's highest decoration "for outstanding valor and service during WWII." Previously, he had been awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Palm twice and coveted fourragere. Experience living conditions in a foxhole, go on patrol behind enemy lines, cross minefields, hold your buddy as his life ebbs away, wade through icy water in the dead of winter, and crawl on your belly directly into machine-gun fire. Witness the pent-up emotions as U.S. soldiers free one French town after another. Hear church bells chime their message of freedom and watch people pour into the streets. Drink wine, laugh, dance, hug, and cry with them. Realize that you probably won't make it home alive and pray to God and your guardian angel every day that you do. Read the chilling letters of a combat infantryman soldier in WWII who continuously faced death and survived. This is Bob's courageous story.




Letters of the Century


Book Description

"Immediate and evocative, letters witness and fasten history, catching events as they happen," write Lisa Grunwald and Stephen J. Adler in their introduction to this remarkable book. In more than 400 letters from both famous figures and ordinary citizens, Letters of the Century encapsulates the people and places, events and trends that shaped our nation during the last 100 years. Here is Mark Twain's hilarious letter of complaint to the head of Western Union, an ecstatic letter from a young Charlie Chaplin upon receiving his first movie contract, Einstein's letter to Franklin Roosevelt warning about atomic warfare, Mark Rudd's "generation gap" letter to the president of Columbia University during the student riots of the 60s, and a letter from young Bill Gates imploring hobbyists not to share software so that innovators can make some money... In these pages, our century's most celebrated figures become everyday people and everyday people become part of history. Here is a veteran's wrenching letter left at the Vietnam Wall, a poignant correspondence between two women trying to become mothers, a heart-breaking letter from an AIDS sufferer telling his parents how he wants to be buried, an indignant e-mail from a PC user to his on-line server... "Letters," write Grunwald and Adler, "give history a voice." Arranged chronologically by decade, illustrated with over 100 photographs, Letters of the Century creates an extraordinary chronicle of our history, through the voices of the men and women who have lived its greatest moments.




Alonzo's War


Book Description

Alonzo Bryant Searing, a high school graduate aged 18, enlisted in the 11th New Jersey Volunteer Regiment in Dover, New Jersey in 1862 and served two years and ten months as a Private in the Union Army. His unit served in 27 engagements and he was slightly wounded twice. During that time he wrote 110 letters home to his sister. Twenty-five years later he edited these letters, adding information from his well-kept journals and his memory and had them published in The Morris County Journal newspaper from 1890-1893. The book is this collection of letters, written with a dry humor, which includes graphic descriptions of engagements, including some listings of death, wounding and sickness, opinions of the war, politics, religion, race, alcohol, deserters, camp conditions, hospital life, his own poetry and accounts of meetings with friends and relatives in nearby Army units.




Reluctant Accomplice


Book Description

An ordinary German soldier’s letters home from Poland and Russia during World War II Reluctant Accomplice is a volume of the wartime letters of Dr. Konrad Jarausch, a German high-school teacher of religion and history who served in a reserve battalion of Hitler's army in Poland and Russia, where he died of typhoid in 1942. He wrote most of these letters to his wife, Elisabeth. His son, acclaimed German historian Konrad H. Jarausch, brings them together here to tell the gripping story of a patriotic soldier of the Third Reich who, through witnessing its atrocities in the East, begins to doubt the war's moral legitimacy. These letters grow increasingly critical, and their vivid descriptions of the mass deaths of Russian POWs are chilling. They reveal the inner conflicts of ordinary Germans who became reluctant accomplices in Hitler's merciless war of annihilation, yet sometimes managed to discover a shared humanity with its suffering victims, a bond that could transcend race, nationalism, and the enmity of war. Reluctant Accomplice is also the powerful story of the son, who for decades refused to come to grips with these letters because he abhorred his father's nationalist politics. Only now, late in his life, is he able to cope with their contents—and he is by no means alone. This book provides rare insight into the so-called children of the war, an entire generation of postwar Germans who grew up resenting their past, but who today must finally face the painful legacy of their parents' complicity in National Socialism.




Finding themselves


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A Soldier's General


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During his service in the Confederate army, Major General Lafayette McLaws (1821-1897) served under and alongside such famous officers as Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, James Longstreet, and John B. Hood. He played a significant role in some of the most crucial battles of the Civil War, including Harpers Ferry, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. Despite this, no biography of McLaws or history of his division has ever been published. A Soldier's General gathers ninety-five letters written by McLaws to his family between 1858 and 1865, making these valuable resources available to a wide audience for the first time. The letters, painstakingly transcribed from McLaws's notoriously poor handwriting, contain a wealth of opinion and information about life and morale in the Confederate army, Civil War-era politics, the Southern press, and the impact of war on the Confederate home front. Among the fascinating threads the letters trace is the story of McLaws's fractured relationship with childhood friend Longstreet, who had McLaws relieved of command in 1863. John Oeffinger's extensive introduction sketches McLaws's life from his beginnings in Augusta, Georgia, through his early experiences in the U.S. Army, his marriage, his Civil War exploits, and his postwar years.