A Book of War Letters

Words at war presents a book of war letters. Dear son, I have no way of knowing as I write this that you, my yet unborn child, will be a boy.

If you turn up to be a little lady, I will cherish you as dearly as I do your mother. But I may never see you. You and I may never talk together as a father and child should.

That is why I write you this letter now. The country of which you will soon be a citizen is fighting for its life, and your father is preparing for his share in the combat. We cadets joke and laugh at the dangers ahead, but each of us knows that someday he must face the final fact of death.

We do not want to die, but we face death so that you of the future may have a world worthy of our dreams. My faith allows me to look forward to wonderful years ahead that we shall share. If it should be otherwise, then you must dream my dreams. Find peace.

The happiness that I have only touched upon. May my blessing and that of God protect you and keep you. Your Father. Word is at war. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the Council on Books in War Time brings you another in a series of adaptations of war books.

Tonight, as America remembers two years of global war, we dramatize for you a group of war letters written by men in the armed forces, letters from the camps and fighting fronts. This is the war as your men see it.

The letters are from the recently published volume of Book of War letters, edited by Harry E. Moore. I'm Camp New York, July 1942. Dear friends, today I am so very happy. Something wonderful has happened.