Soldiers of ’44

To: Lieutenant Buell Docker ASX 36663864

APO 784

European Theatre of Operations

February 2, 1945

Dear Buell:

News of your promotion duly noted and long overdue, your fans here contend. Your paterfamilias stopped by the college last week. Worn and tired as we all are by the war. But nothing physically serious. He asked me to mention that the cream-and-silver bitch — why did you name her Detroit? — is recovering from some kind of dysentery, and is again begging for snacks up and down your elm-lined paradiso street, and — what an irony — terrorizing the mailmen who must deliver those frightful telegrams. But not so frequently now, thank God.

And, irony — after all the pennants were flying for victory — stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold — after all the terror and death you had seen, there was still to be more of it, still that last test of blood and fire in the Ardennes offensive. Did you know the newspapers are calling it the Battle of the Bulge? Well, too much. No tears left here. In the end, pessimists are always proven right, I expect.

As ever,

(signed) Dave

From: David Hamlin

Associate Professor of English

College of Pennsylvania

Ardmore, Pennsylvania