Andrew carroll. The gentlemen for of several New York Times bess bell severals including war letters, letters of a nation and behind the lines and edded on a probono basis operation homecoming, iraq, afghanistan, and the home front, in the worlds of u. S. Crops and their families. Which inspired the film of the same name. In 1998 andrew founded the Legacy Protect that honors veterans and active duty troops by preserving wartime confidence. Andrew has traveled to all 50 states including been countries including afghanistan and iraqment and. Andrew donated this massive Collection Free of charge to Chapman University, which is also where roger and my friend went to school. The legacy project has been renamed, the center for american war letters, and is now part of Chapman University, andrew serve as the centers director. Andrew is embarking on the Million Letters Campaign to seek out and preserve at least one million war relate correspondents from every american conflict. He has a new book, my fellow soldiers, general john personning and the americans who helicopter win helped win the world war i. Ladies and gentlemen, andrew carroll. [applause] good evening. Thank you for coming out on this beautiful night. Really appreciate and it so grateful for vivian and rainy day books, a great independent book store, and laura in setting this up. I have come to this museum, the National World war i war museum, many times as a sight seer and visitor, as a researcher and always love coming back here and now its an record to come here in didnt ash honor to come here in this roll. I want to give you some behind the scenes stories and want to talk about the overall war letters campaign. Its so integral to the creation of the book. And i want to show you some extremely rare and i think in some cases breathtaking original war letters from our archives at Chapman University. I also love the discussion part of these events to feel free to ask questions and if you how heave letters and email you would consider sharing, id love to discuss that with you. So, as vivian noted, in the introduction, i had the opportunity to travel in the United States and to go to countries around the world in search of wartime correspondences and one of the most surreal and also meaningful conversation is ever had was in baghdad, and i was actually just about to leave and waiting for a military escort to take me to the airport. I saw four young iraqi man standing about 15 feet frommer. They were in the 20s and i knew they spoke english and really wanted to talk to them. Id been to iraq and spent my time with the military but i wanted to talk to iraqi beside the war brut i was his cant about just walking up to this group of iraqis, and i finally said ill never have this opportunity again so attentively win over, introduced myself, said i was a writer, centralling the world and was looking for war letters and ask if i could talk to them. They looked at me and each other and total silence, and one ongoing man, who name as omar, looked like he was about to Say Something and then kind of held back. Said, feel free to ask me anything you want. So he breaks out in this big smile and says, who are your favorite british authors . Theres a war going on around us, and this is the question that he wanted to know. So i thought, well, youre a writer. This is a slamdunk. So i stood there and started thinking not one name came to mind, and i little beads of sweat started to form on my forehead. Felt like i was representing the entire American Educational system, and i got to the point i was forget favorite british authors, just name any british author, and i was still so thunderstruck by the question that i could not think of a single name. So the iraqi to the helpful, started throwing out suggestions, dickens, longfellow. After a painfully long period of silence i came up with a name which was shakespeare, and as awkward as the moment was, it kind of helped break the ice and we had a fascinatings conversation about our nations and what had again owing. Omar said my escort arrived and i had to good to the airport. One last question. Why do you focus on letters . I was halfway around the world at this point, and nobody had asked me that question. I think we all sort of took for granted they had sentimental value but never been asked what is about these correspondences, and omar said his brother second in what was called the first gulf war, and he wrote home, and he hateed hussein ask hated the army but couldnt say that that. I skid him if he saved the correspondence, he said no, we burned them all. So that stayed with me, the question of what about correspondences and one of the ironies of the project, is have no military connection, nerve serve no one in my family served, and to perfectly blunt i didnt like history. It was a tedious memorization 0 of dates and places and then something extraordinary happened. Our house in washington, dc burned to the ground. Nobody was hurt, which is the most important thing. But everything we had went up in smoke, and back then you lost your alerts and your forecasts, they were gone forever, and soon after the fire we got a call from a distant cousin who had southbound in the military, world war 2 veteran, to whom the world war ii veteran, ad he just wanted to check in to see how we were doing ump said all ofunder family items are gone. He said it just makes me this, was going through my old world war 2 box and i came across a letter i wrote to my wife issue was a young 23 years old at the time, p31 pilot, and see isnt me a copy and ill never forget. This is the original. Three pages long, type, it says dear brittany, april 2, 1194. I saw something today that makes me realize why were over here fighting this war. And he goes into graphic detail about walking through the nazi concentration camp of buicken alwaysel hauled which has just been liberated, and it gets graphic. I remember holding this thin onion citizen paperer correspondence and how from jill it was huh significant the weight of the words he was writing about. And and i said, jim, this is unbelievable and i will return it to you. He said, you know what . Just keep it. I was probably going to drove it out. Soon after that experience i talked with a young woman who has become a dear friend and i told her this story. She said my grandfather just read a letter at his 50th 50th wedding anniversary he had written world war ii he was 23 and he was part of a lost battalion and he was with a group that were surrounded from germans in world war ii and they withsaved with a japanese combat team. And so this is how it began. Just kind of word of mouth, talking with veterans and families, and so eventually i reached tout dear abbie because she has some continues to write a lot of veterans veterans and y and supporting the military community. Said i want to encourage americans to go through the attics and basements and see what they have and preserve them. A lot of them are throwing these things away. Rented out a post office box and said can we start the project, and she said, lets do this. So an veterans day in 1998, this column appeared in newspapers around the country and the floodgates opened. Thousands and thousands of letters were coming in and i didnt know this until i got a call from the post office, which is weird when theyve call you. They said you need to get down here now and pick up your mail. This is just four days of the column ran. I said ill jump on my week and be there in 30 seconded. The said you might want to bring a car or a van. They were bins and bins of letters coming in from all over the country and these are people who put something in the mail the very first day, the tip of the iceberg, and ill never forget sitting in my car, going through letters. It was like christmas. What first struck me were the cover letters, the messages from veterans or family letters saying why they sent the leaders. One woman isnt he original letters from vietnam her brother had script and she explained the background and say, my brother is gone. Is missing, and then she put parenthetically but not a pow. He came back from the war but was traumatized by what he had seen and experienced that one day he just walked out the front door of our house and we have not been able to find him since. She ended with issue just want someone to remember who he was, and what was also important about the cover letters, they gave context to the letters that werent immediately apparent. This is not the original, it begins, dear mom and dad. Here i am in its from the file peoples. The whole middle part of the letter is gone and the bottom it says, well, hope so, too. Love bill. P. S. , the might censor this letter. Now issue had seen letters where theres the name of a ship cut owl, al aleaned. This is like the gave away the whole pacific campaign, and from this brother, ernie, what i learn is that bill would take a piece of paper, write the first line on top time and time again write the last line. He would cut out the middle. Blame the censors all because he hated writing letters home and this was easier. Now, for the Service Members who actually decided to write something, the history that they were witness to was just extraordinary. This is one of the letters we received also from dear sis, its sunday morning. We have been bombed for over an hour. This antiaircraft guns areamerring away. He says i can hear people screaming over the intercom. You look the upper righthand corner, december 7, 1941, uss new orleans, pearl harbor. He is right the in eye 0 the storm describing it and there is would nowhere for him to good and it its was like a 50page letter which he could not send originally. He held on it to and thankfully survived, which is how we have the letter. And because we get letters and now emails from different generations you. Get to see the echos over time. People had similar experiences. And one of the most powerful letters we received was 14 pages, handwritten, by a young woman, anna miller, who was also witness to one of the most horrific days in American History and she writes her throat her parent. She not the she is soon after it happened and she is writing a letter to per parents and narrating almost like a short story. Begins in a business meeting, with a speaker and 100 people, and they all shes describing this in the first person. We hear this mass sim boom outside. Massive boom and everybody stops and talk and realize its probably construction that had fallen from the building next door. Because we notice it scaffolding. Then she said were sitting there and suddenly we start hearing sirens and theyre getting louder and louder and then we hear people screaming, and finally someone in the audience stands up and says to the speaker, i dont mean to be rude but look outside to see whats going on. Shy walk over to large bay windows with curtains and the moment they pull them back the look up and see the second plane hitting the world trade center. Theyre in the mariott right next door. And so anna describes in very vivid detail about rushing towards the exits and a Security Guard is blocking the way, ashen, look he has seen a ghost. She says we have to get out. Were being told to evacuate. He said you cannot go out there. You cannot see what is out there, and finally they convince him theyre just being told by the police to get out of the building, and he says to them, want you to run as fast as you can. And do not look at what is in streets, which was of course impossible for them not to do. And anna again goes into detail about what they saw, and how she was caught up in the smoke and debris when the buildings fell and almost died. Theres one little comment, id like to just add, that i know this is hard to see but where obviously meticulous about the letters we receive to make sure theyre kept in pristine condition and i notice two little stains and i thought i hope we didnt do anything to this and i called anna and i said, i just have to be up front. Noticed two kind of water stains. Were those there before . She said, yes. Thats are my tears bass i was crying when i wrote this. People assume going back to the first and Second World War that because of christian sore children their letters dont say anything, as be pearl harbor letter dim nonstraight theyd get around Christian Christian soreship. This is censorson and this letter begins, my beloved, another sunday and were style abart. Wonder how many more days will we like this. Mainly im wired about and you aunt ruth. Pretty common expression of affection and worry. Then we got the code sheet. When i start a letter, my beloved, as he does here, look for code name of aunt or uncle. There were no aunts or uncles. On the cider al the fictitious names. Aunt ruth, sign pan. Pearl, ewoe, bud, philippines and goes down the list. So the letter was saying much more than it let on specially to the censors. What was also so extraordinary about the the paper relead something about the life and death circumstances. We have letters from desert storm and Operation Iraqi freedom coated in sand because they were written the desert. Letters from the civil war splotches of mud and blood. Hers from korea where the evening is stained because it was in a snowstorm. And this letter a letter to a friend where a shell dropped next to this man and didnt explode help told his friend be in close call, gets shot through the back and survives but this is the bullet hole right through the letter. Those their singe marks. Letter raritying all you need is a pencil and piece of paper, dont need a musical industry or stage or mission anything else. One of the most powerful letters was by a slave named rice who schemed to freedom, joint the union army and he found out that his regiment, by sheer coincidence, was be a bearing down on the plantation where he was a alive and his daughter was still in bondage. As they were approaching he wrote this letter to his former master. I received a letter from caroline tell michigan you say i tried steal my child from you. I want you to understand that mary is my child, and she is a god given right to my own. Were making up a thousand black troops and when we come, well be to the woe be to slaveholding levels because we dont expect to leave them root nor branch. Often off toward pay you oh for hi own child but im glad you did not accept it. You hold on as long as you can and when i come after mary i will have a power and an authority to bring her away and execute vengeance on those who hold my child. You will then know how to speak to me. Spots rice. Not all of the correspondences we get solemn or seriousment theres a lot of live l levitty. One is by an army sergeant, sharon allen and the wrote home an email about it was kind of a camp fire singalong with a group of kurdish soldiers who had slightly misinterpreted a beatles song they thought walts at little green vegetable. This is sharon writing them to her family. July 2004. We work with turk riches and the kurd. The kurd love us. One guy brought his gait tar to guard shakes and played music for them. Sometime tase try to join in. You havent lived until you have seen a bush of kurdish soldiers completely ak47s,sitting around and switching gusto as they mangle the beatles, let it be. When i find myself in times of trouble, mother mary comps to me, speaks word offed wisdom, little, pea, little pea, they got into it. Lot pea, let pea, little pea, whisper words of wisdom, little pea. That was a good day. Not all letters we have also are combat situated or written in a war zone, and one of the most powerful letter its have come across is from korea, by a young kid, 19 years old, and maybe even younger, and he was finally realizing his wasp on his way back home and wrote this to his family. Just small excerpt. Dear everybody. Im combing home. Its official as of this morning. Sometime before i crash on your door, few weeks but im coming home. Im looking forward seeing you again but no hurry to see your expressions when you see me. Im spend 12 months over here, the longest 30 years of my life. Tomorrows i would ha trade my soul for a drunk of cold water or hot coffee but im coming home now. Its almost funny, well see a guy in a wheelchair, guy in on crutches, one arm, hooks for hands, and we break our backs trying to help them. But what about the wound you cant see . The phantoms the nightmares the ghost in your head. Im going to tell you now, youll need a lot of patience with me. Patience and understanding. We all will. See you soon. See you soon, see you soon. And then we see as well how are affects not just those who served but those on the home front. And again, one of the most poignant correspondences we came across is by a woman named byrne ma, heir son lost his leg and he was a very athletic man and this was grave injury. She leafed near Walter Reed Hospital and would see him. And she sent this kind of email journal to other members of the family. I brought charles clothes home from walter reed. Everything had gone through the squash dried cycles and i dumped the freshly laundered clothes on to the bed to fold them. It was late and i was trier and i wanted to get to bed. I found one sock, just one. I folded all the rest over the clothes and still just the one sock. Without even thinking i walked back to laundry room and searched the trier for the mate, nothing was there. I looked between the washer and dryer and all around the floor in case i dropped the other sock during the loading and unloading process. Still, my tired and preoccupied mind didnt get it. As i walked become to the bedroom with the one sock in hand, it hit me like a punch to the gut there was no other sock. It was also no other foot, no lower leg or knee. I stood there in my bedroom and clutched that one clean sock to my breast and involuntary moan came from the throat but originated in my heart. This was an email, and i cant emphasize enough that when you tack about the project, when i say her its include emails. I will say theyre something rather dynamic and important about a hand written letter. And when i was in iraq, i saw a young soldier who was standing in front of a video camera, and when he wag finish fished i asked him issue dont anyone interrupt you. This is not the original, just a facsimile of it. I asked him what he was doing, she said im burning a dvd throat my mom. And dvd letterer to my mom and this dvd will probably be obsolete within 10 to 15 years, just as we dont use vhs tapes and are reel to reel which they did in vietnam. This letter, which im not going drop, is from the american revolution. This is the oldest letter we have and one of the old els war letter inside existence. And it is as pristine as the day it was written become in 1775. Moving on to general pershing and world war i. It wools not interested in tis conflicts even after astart the war letters project. After we move out of the house at burn down, we moved into another part of washington, dc called spring valley. By american university. And as it turned out, au had been working during world war i to create the most lethal gas ever constructed by man. And when the war was over, they just dumped all the munitions in the ground and didnt put up any signs. I was a very rural area back then. And years later, after we moved in there men we biohard suits showed up from the army corps of engineer and said we have to evacuate the area we discovered poisonous gas around the area. This is what intrigued me about world war i and what kind me focusing on he project and the book. I will say that passionate its feel about these, i am hoping my next book doings not involve a house burning down or men in biohazard suit and it love this quote in the paper, this is stenyears after the first visit. And its from the Health Departments bureau roof hazard yours material said the risk would depend on what the familys behavior is. A family with children who might enjest ingest soil should have more concern that resident pros do not spent that mum type of in the dirt. As long as you dont eat the ground, youre okay. To me, general pershing, a distant figure, was to be perfectly almost, almost as boring as the war itself. Until i started to learn his personal story. And what especially stuck out about general pershing and theres all the went to west point but only women there for the Free Education barely got and was an interesting character when the got in. After all this when he was a very senior officer, he was at fort bliss, texas, august 1915. And he had been brought down there from the presidio in San Francisco where his family was, and he wanted them to stay there because they we be safe. He was in mexico because they were bandits and the was on there without his family. On me orange 0 august 27 average form call came into the headquarters, and a reporter somewhat breezily said, need to get a quote from the general about the fire the presidio. And per shipping had pucked up his own phone, usually his aide wood, and he said what fire . And the reporter suddenly realized who he was talking to. And he said, sir, have you not heard the us . And she said, no. The reporter Norman Walker from the app said im are so to tell you this, but your wife and your three little girls are all gone. They all died in that house fire. And only warren, who is six at the time, was pulled out alive unconscious, and suddenly, pershing became human to me and someone wanted to learn more about and knowing from that day on, as he went off the war, and he was carrying this enormous grief with him and so i started looking for correspondences that he wrote and i actually came across because i think people those who have these correspondences by pershing dont realize how significant he is. This is like coming across something by eisenhower or patton. He outranges. The. The only general in American History to be given a sixth star in this lifetime. And he is just a fascinating character. In letter, which is dated december of 1915, three months after the fire. He is writing to his wifes best friend, ann, and theyre both still grieving and this was a revelation. In the letter pershing says warren doesnt know of his loss. But includes mama and helen and ann and mary margaret, this sisters in this prayers every night. Just cannot tell him. He thinks theyre in cheyenne. Vacationing with his grandparents. That was so stunning to me, just this little part of his personal history. And he became not the statue of a man but a real human being who showed empathy for others in their time of crisis and pershing had been friends with Theodore Roosevelt, and teddy wanted to go to the war and lead a regiment, and wilson was in no mood to give roosevelt what he wanted. Will son had been calling roosevelt a coward and pacifist before the war started so wilson rejected his appeal. But teddy did send over his four boys, and the youngest, quintin, was wanted to become a pilot and he wrote these incredible letters about his experiences, and on july 14, 1918, quintin was shot down and killed. And pershing was one of the first to reach out to t. R. And said i realize the time alone can the wound. The sum bell egg word of understanding from ones helpeds friend. Want to express to you and quintins mother my deepest sympathy. Perhaps i can come as close to realize what such a loss means as anyone and t. R. Respond, im immensely touched by your letter. You have suffered far more bitter sorrow than hat befallen me. You bore with splendid courage and i should be ashamed of myself if i do not try to imlate that courage. Because of roosevelts status he received letters and tell telegrammed but one letter i want to include thats bus it shows a side of t. R. As well that touched him. And it was from a woman, apparently teddy would mostly just send back a quick one sentence message, thank you for your letter. But he responded to his woman. I will quote from a fourpage letter. And he says. That the loss is particularly honored on mrs. Roosevelt. Quintin was her baby. The last child left in the home nest. On the night before he sailed a year ago, she did as she has always done and went upstairs to tuck him into bed, the huge, laughing, gentle heard bowl. Always thoughtle and consideredat of those who he came interest contact. Its hard to open the letters coming from your loved one who is dead. This is common, because of the time difference they would keep getting letters after they were notified and it washartbreaking. The last letters when of his squadron on an average a map was killed every day, are written with joy in the great adventure. Hes edge gauged to a beautiful girl. Its heartbreaking for her and his mother but they have both said that they would rather have. This never come back than never have gone. He had his crowd hour, died in the crest of live in the glory of the dawn. Somewhat of an aside, despite all of Theodore Roosevelt bravado of war, the loss hit hi almost harder than mrs. Roosevelt and he died almost of a broken heart just months later. Before he passed away, he could be seen down the stables, the oyster bay home, with the horses that quintin used to ride as a boy could would just sit there, and saying his sons nickname. The left quintons body in europe where he was buried but retrieved the mangled action sell of his plain plane which is on display in oyster bay. Not a. I focussen or president s are generals. The most compelling are characters who never had their napes in the history books and i want to introduce you to a nurse, alta may andrews, and she wrote letters and journals, starting with her training, going over on the atlanta over the atlantic, and then into combat, and like the men in their early letters she wanted to see action. Just gung ho to get to the front and to participate. And like the men who wrote of their combat experience, once she saw it first hand, her enthusiasm was tempered. There was one part of the hospital, once the wind started coming, in that affected her more than any other and it held a groupve patients patients soy wound that even the doctors and the nurses could only spend a few days there at a time before they had to be replaced. And this is what she wrote but it in her journal then her letters. In a low, roughly in 2014 issued floor on the fourth floor, where the low gabled windows emit light brings interest tee rife he red bricks of the unfished walls one finds the jaw word. It is there that the true con sense of the horrors socalled civilized warfare are painly evident. 70 victim of the war, strong, viral young man, permanently disfigured, deadly shrapnel ton its work in most indicates while in others bullets exploded in their mouths. This is very ing and not going to read the more detail part simultaneous says these unfortunate ladders are called upon to bear more than their fair share of suffering. All so horrible and cruel. What especially affected andrews was how the men were coping with it and actually quite positively. She wrote, an atmosphere or hero ic bravely and splen dipped courage is prevalent. Most of them are up patients and individual theboard, playing games, helping one another and continuing jollying with their wanter. All are fed nourishing liquid foods such as raw egg and milk, meat justs and serial. Most are felled with small tubes through their nostril order interest their throats to which the gaping woundses and in the gaping wounds or their faced. Helping feeding one another, turning turns pouring the meal . The funnels and joke about the enormous capacity someone may possess. Their speeches almost incoherent. Here they are so happy and care free. Bravely and enduring untold physical suffering and exhibiting concern but how different it when i separated and returned to civilian life. Andrews ends her journals and letters with a visit from woodrow wilson, the president had come over to get the treaty of versailles, and he came to hospital was. Be to leave and said to chief doctor, have i seen everybody . And he said, pretty much. And wilson said, wait a minute. Have i seen everybody. And the said, well, sir, we have a ward you have not gone to but even the doctors and nurses there find it so disturbing they cant stay for long. Wilson said, take me there and andrews got to witness this event, and she wrote just briefly, the wilson milesanhour will son exhibit can splendid courage went through the entire ward, shaking the hand of every manage, each so addition terribly disfigured and they talked with each one. Wilson had not been shaken like this. Upon leaving the chamber of horrors, the president was as white as death. And his hands trembled. He appeared to stagger. A look of suffering was on his face and he seem completely crushed. These letters letters letters ay andrews were found here, the National World war i museum and misdemeanor, and have enough been published before. When we think of memorials, we often envision massive structures of steel and stone like the incredible Liberty Tower outside. But in many ways i think that these hers and even im evens, as fragile and deligate at some are most the moaning powerful and enduring forms of remembrance we have. That why letters . Because they capture history from a scholarly statement as omars question. They put is in eeye of the storm and these troops and families are more than steengraphers and its real work of art. Not just about war. Theyre about love and loss and grief and courage, heartbreak and resilience in many ways. War is never about grand theories and abstract idea. Its about people, and the men and women who serve and who continue to serve are not just sailors, soldiers, marines and air men. Theyre somebodys child and perhaps somebodys patient, spouse, sixling sibling or best friend. This these are their words, stores and no one i believe can tell them better than they can. Thank you all very much. [applause] i would love if for you all to ask any questions about the project, become the boot, world war i. Make sure we get a microphone to you so everyone can hear. It takes me a little bit of time to walk over, dont hesitate to put your finger before he finishes. Thank you for your lecture. Outstaineding. Have two questions. First question is very much general pershing oriented. And then the second question is more youre rue flexion office your letter project. The first question, why did general pershing decide not to allow the two marine brigades in france to form a division and fight independently . He had general butler, who was a noted marine corps hero he relegated to basically desk duty. Second question, having spent a day or two the military myself i noticed that the type of person that becomes a soldier or marine transseasons time put i want to know based on your research and project how we differ from generation to generation. Excellent question. Recording the first question about general pershing, pershing was a man of faulted help did not want the american troops separated. One of the huge debated with the french and british and i go into detail about behinds the escapes. Almost punned a french gene face when the french general kept saying, just get us your troops and pershing said im not going to allow our bows to become cannon fodder because they were thrown in untrained with officers who spoke a different language, different training procedures, different rifles, everything. Would have caused untold chaos and casualties. However, he makes an exception for the africanamerican troops who he essentially just gives off the french as almost dispensable and guy into the race issue in the book about pershing and so forth and when comunicates to marines its trickier because pershing had reasons for wife he made different decisions he was bearing the weight of the world on his showers because secretary baker and president wilson delegated the entire wore to pershing and its not known how much responsibility he took. He said to them i want to malaga mate the troops that would have said do it. But hi held strong and keeping the americans together. So some of his decisions just werent known to others because he had kind of his own reasoning why he wanted to do something in a certain way, and perhaps it was that he felt these division treated differently, other divisions would want to be treated the same. We just dont know. But in looking the responsibility he bore that if we lost the war, he would have been blamed because the purchase and british would have said we told you, we could have bulletined me germal jugger nat and you said no, and if that happened americas reputation would have been destroyed. Cant imagine the tension he was under. So makes me a little more sympathetic to decisions he made where i trust he had his reason. We can secondguess why he made certain decisions but i think he felt very strongly about keeping everything together as an american army. And i even talk about how he had tried to run the first army and the american army. The first army what part and distinct and he just admitted he was overwhelmed and deligated to another general to take over the day to day. Is there a timelessness about marines and soldiers over the generations in i have to say, what struck me in reading letters from the revolution to iraq is how universal they are. Whether youre at lexing g. O. P. Concord or fallujah, the combination of the terror, the exhilaration, the sense of duty and fear, do seem to transcend fry one generation. How they express themselves is different. So, theres certainly when you read world war i, you say theyre so poetic and sound different. Thats because most of the troops were literal. The one book they all read that was written so beautifully and with so poetry was the bible. And so in many ways their letters reflected that same sort of formality. Now, you read emails today and im glad you brought this up. Theirs a belief that the correspondence today isnt as good as it used to be. Absolutely false. Letters that are proprofound, poetic. Will say the tone has changed. Its much moyer conversational. So that is the big difference. Really started, i would say, even in world war i. You see that switch from the civil war to the First World War and then world war 2 and vietnam and korea they werent censored so their letters are very different. Think overall that in iraq and afghanistan, we see a generation of writer that is absolutely brilliant and have gone on to write book sponsors screen writers or playwrights and its proof how intelligence and how i think artistic a lot of the memberses of the military are and dont get credit for and if have crafted some beautiful works. So thank you. Any other questions . This side want to be represented . My dad was in world war ii, and wright right now im in the midst of reading all the letters he wrote and that my mom wrote to him. There must be close to 300 from the time he first went into the military for training, and ive been just amazed. The power of seeing my parents hand wrighting and reading what he said but theres so many. Im in midst of this right now and i just figured there were so many that maybe no one would be interested in these. So, d. Well, we are definitely interested. And this is a great opportunity to talk about the project, and if anyone has letters we really love getting original but we understand the personal meaning to them. So its kind of a doubleedged sword. Families say we cant let go of the arms. And well give you a scan. So its a backup but there is something about originals that is very special because for scholar us they like to see the postmark and paper and so forth. But what a lot of people have said to us, i think that the next generation of our family or one after that is going to throw these away, so by donating to the war letters project, their preserved forever, and anyone if you have letters, if you know someone who might have letters, plea go to the web site. Its very easy to remember. Its just war letters. Us. We focus on war letters and everything goes to this incredible archive at Chapman University which i out of a lot 0 other institutions because could i sense how passionate they felt. Also, hugh supportive of the faculty and the administration was. My key concern was id give them the collection and just look it up and say, great, thank you, were done. They said we want to grow this collection and be the largest archive of american wartime correspondence anywhere world and the welcome it, outside of the National Archives in the library of congress. Our hope is that people will just spread the word. I think it was wonderful Family Activity to bring the letter outside and go through them and what always strikes me is the younger generation, grandpa is just like the biggest grumpy guy ive ever met. Then they read his lord letters when hi is 18 or 19 and thank, where was this identify in the is funny and engaging and like a kid and it shows them different side of family members who they think they height already know. That you discovered in vietnam . In iraq and afghanistan i was never in combat but i was meeting with them when they just got back from the shins play wanted to see what the iraqis were writings are just a quick side story on that, i went and talked to a lot of people who promised me they would try to look for letters and emails and got nothing. Came home and had this wonderful assistance from the small town of nebraska. I didnt get any letters. I can ask them. So he went to the community and we got all these letters and emails about the iraqi perspective, what it was like to live under iraq and so forth but the vietnam was interesting because as an encouragement of the Vietnam Veterans who said we would like to work here we are curious what was the other side during all this, vietnam is an interesting dilemma because it is a communist country and so, there are those that are heavily censored and what they would allow us to see was very well picked out. I think this is a gentle man that worked as a concierge. He said i had someone that was looking for stamps and this antique shop and came back complaining there were no not at of stamps but there were letters he had no use for. Thats what i was looking for. So we went back to this shop and they skimmed over the letters and said this is a battle letter so it was for the stamp collectors by wanted bees and they couldnt care about the letters that were inside. So that is how i ended up with the letters that was fine and what struck me was we had this wife of a south vietnamese officer saying how your little boy wont let anyone sit at the seat at the dinner table, thats for papa. He goes around all day long saying i have a civil war letter almost identical. A mother writing to her husband saying robert wont let anybody sleep in your bed or sit in your chair and he just goes around saying pop pop all day so it struck me how similar the emotions were and it was a human experience. So, that was especially powerful because i went with you and other veterans but what was i think the highlight for me this was the group of soldiers and scientists have scooped the remaining troop troops come so d train an entire lake in vietnam, they will scale mountains and do everything they can. No country in the world is anything more to retrieve the missing Service Members and one of the letters that came out of the trip is from the guy that headed the mission with the experience of her so one of my favorite correspondences its in a book behind the lines which is letters from all american wars with the russians are writing and the german champ mentioned all these Different Countries and its just to give a kind of International Perspective of the war and emotional timeless. [inaudible] there were these things called trench pens and they were configured so they wouldnt block a lot and its kind of how the personal pens became very common. It wasnt just quilted anymore. And it was because of world war i that we had this resolution using the personal pens. To me i it was a censorship isse that this was the first time he was massive censorship was massive censorship throughout the letters and it was interesting how people got around at those. One of my favorite on the local perspective, one of my favorite people and focus on is. Truman who was the artillery captain. They reach referred to truman as a failed haberdasher. You read the experience and he literally was almost killed several times in the war not just from artillery but it was rather impressive and if so. There is a story i include as an anecdote where daring the fire his horse toppled over and he was suffocating to death. He said i was within seconds. He came over, pulled him to safety and saved his life. At the end i follow back on all these people. One of my favorites was bill donovan. So what happened to all these guys come and then click they had a big clash in the white house. He came to him and said we need to create kind of a Central Agency that gathers intelligence and he said no. Im not going to do it because an agency like that will turn on its own people. He said that will never happen. So whats interesting is he said you have to have some sort of an intelligence gathering institution. Of course we need the cia. And as it turned out, they did turn on the americans. So i talk about the story at these intersections of how they served together. So after truman became president , all the other men from the battalion wrote to congratulate him and so forth and truman was trying to win the war with a million things going on at once but they sent him a second letter and referred to him as president captain harry is a term of affection and he said i hope you dont like my letter of congratulations. Im calling because my son has been lost in combat. He was shot down and we cant find him. He said i know you have all these things going on if theres anything else you can delay would be so grateful and it is a great point in the story. I will leave it at that. But this circles back to the original plaintiffs truman was also a sensor so he was reading the letters and so as the sensor he got around us and are shipped and other troops would do the same thing. Its interesting to hear the comments about what they were writing. He said this didnt happen or they were modest about their experiences and he was an interesting character in that he would talk about himself and they would see these great things about him but he would sort of right activists like i cant believe they are so kind to me. They love their commander, captain they did get a kick out of it. So im going to the truman house tomorrow to talk about the case him and his letters and the president ial library are all online and i really cannot encourage people not. Check them out. They have some really wonderful chen from the training and combat and coming back home and of course the president ial papers. So, once again the intent is to make people show a different side of them, but i cannot thank the museum enough for this opportunity. Thank you all for coming out and i look forward for the chance to talk to you all on a personal basis and thank you so much. [applause] just like the National World war i museum and memorial the war letters project is a global story so dont forget, www. War letters of u. S. But also us a global story and if you are looking to see the propeller or the flag cross the bridge into the main gallery if you havent been there, both of them are there and it will be more poignant after you have read the book. Please join us for the book signing