Somewhere In France
Dear Honey,
Your wandering husband is really putting in some busy days
now—but it’s duties that I like and that are excellent experience. Since I last
wrote I have achieved the impossible, namely, to get a man acquitted in a court
martial. As defense council, I made it impossible for them to pin even “drunk
& disorderly” on an original charge that carried a 5 year sentence and a
dishonorable discharge. Do you mind if I brag about it to you only? It’s the
first court martial acquittal I’ve ever seen, and my first case as chief
defense council. I have been ass’t defense council several times tho, you know.
Thanksgiving today—did you have a big meal at the Russell’s?
I hope so. We didn’t have an official day off, but C Company, revelling in new
independence from Battalion, took a holiday. I, however, a Special Service
Officer ran around to get a movie to show in the local school house—(guess
what, it was “Christmas Holiday”), and as PX Officer I went to battalion to get
our weekly ration—tomorrow I will set up a PX for C Company in the local café.
I would very much like to see the movie “Wilson” that you
praise so highly. I have always been interested in him, and once when I was in
high school had an idea of writing something about him. I never did decide
whether it would be a play or a biography, so you can see how far I got. But
there was a theme there, and even now it seems that his life and death provide
material for a perfect tragedy. His lofty ideals, gigantic efforts and ultimate
failure and death make an excellent study. What will happen after this war, I
don’t know. It will not result in Utopia, I know that. It will be a grim place
maintained by force and run for and by a certain group of nations. It may well
result in a new version of a “Pax Romana,” but I am skeptical of the
possibility of any peace based on the mutual agreement of all people.
Things are not shaping that way at all now. However, a sort of world machinery
of government may be developed which, altho not based on mutual agreement,
might conceivably be the basis of such a world government in time. A world
tyranny might evolve into a world democracy.
Recently you mentioned wanting to do work for returning
wounded veterans, or at least thinking about it. Such services are an excellent
thing, and offer a chance to perform a real duty that is quite different from
that of the flag-waving female who thinks she can win the war by wearing a
uniform. Before you do anything, tho, I can warn you that it would not always
be pleasant work. You would perhaps be working with the badly maladjusted
cases. I have seen plenty of cases not considered bad enough for special
treatment, that really made me hesitate. I think it would be a chance to help
people, Hon, and I’d be proud to have you in it. Do not think it would consist
of playing waltzes for a group of Sunday School boys, tho. Rehabilitation is
not just another word for a furlough—many men need to be civilized all over
again. I can understand your wanting to do something, Honey, and have been a
little worried at times because you did have such a long time before KTC could
enter the picture. Some work like that might get you into a new circle of
lively friends and be the best way to keep your horizons broadening. Maybe
because I want to study myself, I have overstressed the importance of school to
you. There are a thousand other ways of getting an education, and any of these
you might pick to work hard at would be fine as far as I’m concerned. It’s the
stimulation to life you get that is important. The thing I would dislike most
is to have you become intrenched in the petty, housewifely routine of Keene
women. By overlooking a few earthy good points, I can say that the “grapevine”
represents the height of pettiness, conventionalism, futility, and sophistry.
It could be pictured as the personification of what we are fighting against. Do
not be afraid to leave it and rise above it. They feel the have the world
wrapped in cellophane, when actually it’s so big you can’t even get a string
around it.
Naturally taking care of Grammy holds you to Keene
physically to some degree. But geography isn’t the main thing that molds
people, it’s their attitude towards it. I have no doubt that Miss Ackerman
knows well how to be in Keene, and yet above it. She might be a good person to
seek advice from when responsibility and loneliness come creeping up. She has
had both for years and seems to have won over them. As for Grammie, it is
necessary to be ready for anything. Plan now what you will do, and be mentally
ready. When I think of death, I think of the phrase “This is not the end.”
Death has a very final appearance, but it is not the end of things. All the
good things you love people for go on forever and are immortal. Truth and love
and humanity keep springing up and continuing on. Thoughts you have will be
thought again and eventually become realities; and will make bodies and minds
exactly like yours happy and harmonious. The discordant things you feel with be
felt again and again until some lucky body discovers a way to bring that
feeling into perfect tune with eternal reality and there will be no more
discord.
Every person needs someone to lean on; a person alone does
find death to be the end of everything. The thing you lean on in other people
is spiritual, however; so remember, honey, you can always lean on me and I am
always with you. You are not alone. I love you as I have always, and am close
to you even know.
With all my love,
Wallace.
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