Love is Everything

• Lauren B
• 0
• on Sep 30, 2022

Something that I found particularly interesting was not only soldiers but recipients’ habit of burning or discarding letters sent to each other. It was done by Martha Washington with her letters from George under the idea that she wanted her relationship with him to remain private. It was also done by soldiers abroad because they couldn’t carry a lot of letters for an extended period of time since they needed room in their bags for their essentials. Opposite of getting rid of letters because you wanted to keep them private was when soldiers would burn them in response to getting broken up with. Overall, it’s so intriguing that though these people were engaging in the same behavior it was done so under completely different circumstances. One out of privacy and love, the other out of anger and resentment. It makes me consider the emotional implication of receiving a letter. Your whole heart must burst knowing that someone is thinking about you but depending on the contents or how much space you have available it could break because you know you can’t keep either the letter or the feelings for the person behind it. Burning the Dear John letters must have been very therapeutic for soldiers, giving them an event where they could let loose of their emotions for once. Even the love letters that weren’t Dear John ones did this too; they gave soldiers somewhere where they could fully embrace the positive feeling they had and not feel out of place for it. In a way, burning those love letters could give soldiers a chance to acknowledge those feelings publicly and to feel good because they knew they were protecting the person they loved. 

Something I found a bit interesting was that as more time passed letters got more conversational, some soldiers in World War II going as far as type their response directly onto the letter they received. It’s a stark contrast to letters of the Revolutionary War that were seen more as poetic speeches of love. What makes this shift more interesting is that the letter we listened to from during the Iraq war was also quite powerful in its message, recalling this poeticness of long ago. But this can be attributed in part to the rise and fall of letters over the years. During the 1700s letters were few and far between for wartime couples, they were also the only form of communication at the time prompting the idea that every word you wrote down had to be perfect and meaningful. During the 1940s communication was quicker and more simplified in terms of style, more people were writing in a way that could be done today. It was also easier to learn about news during this time period, allowing people to see things they wouldn’t normally be seeing. Scaring them into speaking far more frankly than their predecessors. Perhaps then during modern times when communication and news access is at its fastest people want to fully emphasize how much someone may mean to them. In the letter written during the Iraq war the soldier was very frank and open with how much his wife meant to him and how strong she was. With the increasing simplification of communication due to social media and internet people in dangerous situations may be more pushed to write in a more sentimental way so people know exactly how the writer feels about them

I found it surprising how fast the relationships moved between soldiers and their paramours. Sometimes they would go from complete strangers to asking to marry the other within a few months. Even for those who slightly knew each other before the war still had their relationship move at an accelerated pace. Take Chris and Bessie, while they knew each other a bit before the war they still had an incredibly deep relationship that had Chris asking her to marry him within a few months. The strangest part of it is that at the beginning of their communications he could barely remember what she looked like and even as they kept talking he didn’t know her middle name or where she was born. This fast pace can be attributed to soldiers wanting to hold on to anything that made them happy or feel comforted during war. Every day they were fighting and undergoing traumatic experiences so having something, someone they escape in and not talk about the war with was extremely gratifying. 

Why was there a shift from extremely poetic letters to more conversational ones and then back to poetic? During the Revolutionary War we saw that many letters were quite poetic and flowery but by World War II this dynamic changed and letters became far more conversational, like something you could hear today. But during the Iraq war the letter we listened to was quite sentimental and very powerful in the language it used, somewhat resembling letters from the Revolutionary War. Was it due to education, changing norms and customs, or was it just reflective of the sender’s own ideals and their relationship with the recipient? 

Is there a difference in how love letters are written by non-English speakers? All the letters we’ve read/listened to were written by English speakers. It makes me wonder if due to the language differences as well as cultural ones if writers mention different things in their letter, have different writing patterns, or revealed different things about the war. But I guess it would be hard to fully understand and analyze those letters because there could be so much subtext loss in translation or misinterpretation by those who don’t understand that language/culture.

I would say that my aha moment clicked for me when we were listening to letters sent back and forth between Chris and Bessie as well as the Behind the Lines Podcast. I realized that soldiers from so many wars and concentration camp prisoners all followed the same idea. That, when writing letters to focus less on themselves and their own situation but to dive headfirst into communicating with their loved ones and to reassure them that everything would be alright. They wanted to learn about the little things their family was doing, even the most mundane details as a way not only to keep up with them but to use as an escape from the war. Across generations and wars they all held the same ideal that their family should be comforted and protected from the horrors of what they, the soldiers, were going through. They all reassured their families that the war would be over soon and they would be reunited. It harks back to the importance of family and love during war; for soldiers it’s always something they can depend on to comfort them. It gives them a motivation that family and love is what they’re fighting for.