Wartime letters on display tell similar stories
“During that time some of those men came over part of the way and we went the other part and shook hands with each other. Did you ever here of the like before, to shake hands together and in les than six hours shoot one another again,” wrote Union Army soldier William Williaman about a five-hour amnesty to allow Confederate soldiers to bury their dead.
Today’s war letters — some as e-mails — are easier on the eye. Army Lt. Col. Scott Roderick’s description of self-improvement while on duty in Kuwait in 2002 was neatly typed: “I quit drinking beer for the first time since I was 16. I kicked my addiction to cable TV as well. I rediscovered my love of reading actual novels instead of the TV Guide Channel.”
Those letters and hundreds more are on display at a new exhibit at the William McKinley Presidential Museum and Library. The letters, from nearly every American war, share a timeless thread: Soldiers miss the comforts of home, dream about the embrace of a lover and pray for peace.
“They’re trying to be big, tough men most of the time, but they all miss their mothers and their daughters. They miss home,” said curator Kimberly Kenney, who read all 400 letters donated from family collections.
“People responded to a call for these kind of letters — we put a little ad in the local newspaper,” she said.
Some pages tell love stories. “Darling, what’s your ring size?” Lloyd Seifer asked his girlfriend, Rhoda Mae, in a World War II note. They later married, and since Seifer’s death in 2003, his wife has read the letters repeatedly.
Fellow Navy man Kenneth Dryden often began letters to his wife, “Dearest Honey.” One details his day getting a rare shower, haircut and shave. “Was ready for a date but couldn’t quite make it as she was about eight thousand miles away,” he wrote. “So I guess I’ll have to meet her in my dreams tonight.”
Other correspondences tell stories almost too good to be true, like the joint letter from Jim Swearengin and his late brother, Eugene. Both were serving in different Navy units during World War II when their ships ended up docked next to each other at Tokyo Bay. On the yellowing paper dated Oct. 18, 1945, Eugene’s cursive handwriting sits above his little brother’s. “He sure looks good,” Eugene wrote to their parents. “I was surprised when they called me at the quarter deck and there he was. Man this is something.”
Weeks after the first atomic bomb, Jim sent darker news: “I had a liberty up to Hiroshima. You may think the pictures look bad but you should see and smell it.”
Now 78, Jim Swearengin recently told The Associated Press that he didn’t think then that his letters were recording history. “I was just corresponding home.” He added that the only thing better than writing was receiving. “Mail call was just wonderful. It was a touch of home and you knew my wife and baby, they were doing fine.”
Deb Fisher, executive director of the Cleveland USO that sends about 500 care packages with letters to soldiers every week, said the sentiment remains true.
“Even though they have e-mail, they still like to have something that they can hold on to, put in their pocket and reread it,” she said. “The paper trail is still very important.”
The exhibit shows that paper has always been very important to the nation’s troops. Many of the Civil War letters, some written on the backs of military orders or other documents because paper was hard to get, ask loved ones to send stationary and stamps.
A 1968 Christmas card sent to family by Army Spc. Gary Lee Weekley in Vietnam symbolizes the turbulence of the times. Next to the printed holiday greeting Weekley wrote a few words, including: “Where is Stanley going after his leave, hope he ain’t coming over here because this place is pure hell.”
Weekley, 20, was killed in combat three months later.
“Letters Home, Stories From the Front” will remain on view through Nov. 13; other stops have not yet been organized.
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On the Net:
McKinley museum: http://www.mckinleymuseum.org/