Posts Tagged ‘war veterans’

“In the very near future, the undersigned will once more be in your midst, dehydrated and demoralized, to take his place again as a human being … In making your joyous preparations to welcome him back into organized society you might take certain steps to make allowances for the past 12 months. … Treat him with kindness, tolerance, and an occasional fifth of good liquor and you will be able to rehabilitate that which was … the happy-go-lucky guy you once knew and loved.”

These lines are excerpts from a letter sent by an Army private to his family—one version of several similar letters that circulated among American soldiers serving in Vietnam. The full text, along with more than 200 other letters, appears in Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam, edited by Bernard Edelman. This riveting book is a reminder that the battlefields and combatants may change but, as Union Gen. William T. Sherman said a century before, war is hell.

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