In wars past, when the hell, fire, and brimstone have settled the one thing that's remained in both the immediate and eternal aftermath is the letters. They live to tell and retell of tragedy and triumph. Civil War letters are most often hailed for their fluency and insight, but I've heard of many meaningful World War and even Vietnam letter stories. Aside from the war itself, my fear with Operation Iraqi Freedom has been that this wasn't happening, and if it was it was to a lesser degree. Stand-up comedian Greg Giraldo does a colorful joke about this:
"I read this book recently and it was filled with letters that soldiers during the Civil War wrote to their girlfriends back home. Every letter in this book was amazing. They were like, 'My Dearest Hannah, This morn finds me wrecked by the fiery pangs of your absence. I'll bear your cherished memory with me as I battle the forces of tyranny and oppression.' Now think about what the typical letter from your average Gulf War solider to his girlfriend back home in Brooklyn must have read like, 'Dear Marie, It is hot as f-- out here. It is hard to fight these sand monkeys with your balls stuck to your legs. It is very very hot and I am very very sweetie. It is very very hot because I am in the dessert. What else did I want to axe you? Oh yeah, don't f-- nobody til I get back.'"
While I can't vouch for the epistolary exchanges of all soldiers from Brooklyn, I was pleased to discover recently that this war is in fact telling an articulate story all its own. (Pleased in the way that if we have to fight I'm glad the voices of those inside are being heard. Not please in the sense that I see the war as a commendable catalyst for letter writing.) The first piece of significant evidence was the April 2, 2007 issue of Newsweek -- it was comprised of the letters, e-mails, and journal entries written by soldiers who had fallen in Iraq. True to wartime correspondence, they were unnerving, sad, and hopeful. Unfortunately, they didn't offer the security of knowing this happened a long time ago.
A few months later I met Army Captain Eric Sakovics. He had just left Iraq for two weeks to attend his cousin's wedding. At the reception I teetered back and forth between asking an onslaught of questions about his experience and telling myself to shut up so he could enjoy the fact that he was away from the war for a while. When he returned to his station our discourse continued over e-mail. I inquired recently as to what his encounters, if any, with letters have been. Apparently, he deals in them all the time.
The first, and I imagine favorite, letters Eric told me of were those he receives from children. Many a grammar school classroom has been given the assignment of writing to Eric and his comrades. He always responds to the teacher and relishes in thoughts of her reading his letter aloud to the class. On the tragic opposite side of the correspondence scale, one of Eric's current jobs is to write to the FRG (Family Readiness Group) when soldiers are killed or wounded. His letters also dispatch army members in the U.S. to knock on the door and notify the family of the incident. Within the past few weeks Eric lost two soldiers, and more importantly, friends. In addition to his FRG letter, he tells me he's compelled to write personal letters to the soldiers' mothers telling them what their sons meant to the platoon and especially to him. He says, "I have no clue how to write it and what I will say, but that will be another side of letters in this story."
When asked if he prefers letters to e-mail Eric says he enjoys them all the same -- the more mundane the better. He likes to hear about problems with neighbors, details on his niece's potty training, and boring office job stories -- anything that offers a temporary transport from where he is. He does recognize the ephemeral nature of e-mail however. I asked him if he'd written a letter that his family would receive upon his death. He said, "I wrote an e-mail to my best friend the day before I left about what I wanted done in case I died. I did this over e-mail because I did not want a hard copy of it -- maybe I thought it would be too real. . . I wrote this before I experienced war so it didn't phase me. Since being here I've seen several of my soldiers writing letters before missions. They put it in an envelope with a sticky note saying, 'If I am killed please mail here.' Eventually even the young guys don't feel indestructible anymore. I still hated seeing that and refused to do it."
At the end of his long, detailed e-mail on modern war correspondence, which came out to be four pages when I printed it, Eric was kind to make me part of the story, "You are actually a part of your own blog since you have e-mailed me as well. I recommend adding yourself as one who writes letters to a solider."
Anyone else interested in being part of the story can write to Eric and his former platoon:
Eric Sakovics
HHT
1-73 CAV
FOB SPEICHER
APO AE 09393
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