Behind the Lines (2024) Movie Script

1
[soft somber music]
-[Annette] From
the first letters penned
during the American Revolution
to emails sent
from across the globe,
US troops and their loved ones
have exchanged an estimated
one billion correspondences.
Out of unexpected beginnings,
a small but
growing mission emerged
to seek out and preserve
the personal,
unvarnished accounts
of those who've
experienced war firsthand
before they are lost forever.
[slow gentle music]
-All of these stones
have a story,
every single one of 'em.
My name is Andrew Carroll
and I'm the Founding Director
of the Center for
American War Letters.
Because of this project,
I've been able
to travel the world.
When I set out on what
I call the big world trip,
when I was going to 40 countries
in a period of about six months,
the timing was terrible.
[soft dramatic music]
[explosion booming]
[shots firing]
The war in Iraq was getting
into a very tough period,
it was hugely unpopular
around the world.
People were burning
the American flag
in Paris and London
and Sydney,
countries that we would
think of as allies.
They were so opposed to the war.
[crowd shouting]
It was not a good time
to be an American
going around the world
asking for, you know,
war correspondences.
Right before I went to
the airport in Baghdad,
someone said, "Why do
you focus on letters?"
I was halfway around the world
having met with, you know,
countless other archivists,
and curators, and so forth.
Nobody ever asked me that.
Why letters?
I'm probably the last person
to have started this.
I don't come
from a military family.
I actually hated history
growing up.
I wasn't one of
those kids who loved
going to battlefields
and stuff like that.
My sophomore year in college,
our house in Washington, DC
burned to the ground
and everything
we had was destroyed.
Literally went up in smoke.
We lost all that
family memorabilia,
those photos, those letters
that just can't be replaced.
On the other side,
if it weren't for this fire,
I never would've started
the War Letters Project.
[soft music]
Not long after the fire,
a distant cousin of mine
named James Carroll Jordan,
who fought in World War II,
heard about the fire,
called us and he said,
"I just remembered I have
an old World War II foot locker
and I might have some letters
and photos in there
and I'm gonna go through it."
I get in the mail
this three-page letter
dated April 21st, 1945.
[soft piano music]
[film reel clicking]
-[Annette] On April 11th, 1945,
American troops liberated
the Nazi concentration camps
in and around
Buchenwald, Germany.
The next day,
General Dwight D. Eisenhower
visited Ohrdruf,
one of Buchenwald's sub-camps
and was shocked
by what he encountered.
Eisenhower ordered US troops
to walk through
the concentration camps
so that they too would
serve as eyewitnesses
to what the Nazis had done.
[poignant piano music]
-This is the letter
that started it all.
This was written by my cousin
James Carroll Jordan
and the first line,
it's to his wife,
he's 23-years-old...
-"Dear Betty Anne,
I saw something today
that makes me realize
why we're over here
fighting this war."
-[Andrew] And he goes on
into the most explicit,
graphic detail
of walking through
the Nazi concentration camp
at Buchenwald.
-"We visited a German
political internment camp
that had been liberated
only two days earlier.
The inmates consisted mostly
of Jews, some Russians,
and Poles, and there
were six American pilots
they had shot
almost immediately.
When we first walked in,
there were all these creatures
that were supposed to be men.
We met one
who could speak English
so he acted as a guide for us."
-And I remember I was
almost like trembling,
holding that thin, onion-skin
paper in my hands
and thinking like
how fragile it was.
And yet, like the weight
of what he was describing.
-"First,
we saw a German monument
that stated 51,000 had died
in the camp in three years.
They were proud of it.
After that, we went up
to the torture department.
Here were beating devices
that I won't explain.
In one room, there were
eight cremator furnaces.
[poignant somber music]
There was another place
I won't tell you about
because I don't think
you'd believe me.
Enclosed you will find
some pictures I took
while going through the camp.
Our time was up so we boarded
the truck and rode home,
just thinking.
[inhales shakily]
[typewriter clacking]
All my love, darling.
Carroll."
[poignant somber music]
-I remember saying to him,
"Of course
I'll send it back to you."
And he said,
you know, "Just keep it.
I probably
would've thrown it out,"
and that was the spark.
[gentle music]
[horns honking]
Then I started talking
with other veterans,
asking them, "What do you do
with your old letters?"
And they said, "Yeah, we just--
we tossed them,"
or, "They're, you know,
just decaying up in the attic"
and I feel like we're losing
something as a country.
Losing the letters
planted a little seed
about how just
irreplaceable they are.
So I started
a very small organization
called The Legacy Project.
If you know
someone who has letters,
all we're trying to do
is make sure that these
are not thrown away, lost.
When we were doing those events
and, you know,
people were showing up
to share their stories,
to give us letters,
they understood the mission
to find these letters,
to humanize the war experience.
First, there were
a couple dozen letters
that people shared with me.
Then I got about 100.
[soft hopeful music]
So it really
launched the project.
I actually wrote to Dear Abby
and she had like millions of
readers in her advice column
and she wrote a column
for Veterans Day.
This is back
November 11th, 1998,
asking her readers to share
any war letters they might have,
and I'd set up
a little post office box
so people could send in,
whether they're
photocopies or originals.
-[Annette] Dear readers,
in honor of Veterans Day,
I wanna tell you about
a young man on a mission.
-About three days after
the column ran,
the post office called
and they were not happy
and they said,
"You need to get down here now
and start picking up your mail."
And I said, "Listen, I live
like three blocks from you.
I will jump on my bike,
I'll be over there
in 30 seconds."
And they said,
"You might want to bring a car.
There are just bins
and bins of letters
like we can't even walk
around here."
And this is the first wave.
-[reporter 1]
Meet Andrew Carroll.
-[reporter 2] ...whose
collection of war letters
helps us remember
the sacrifices made
by our men and women in uniform
from the Revolutionary War
to today.
-I really see it as kind of
an expanding memorial
to the men and women
who served
and to their loved ones.
-[reporter 1] The letters
often open unique windows
into history.
-This is the letter
that was written
from inside the ship
at Pearl Harbor,
December 7th, 1941,
USS New Orleans.
-"Dear Sis,
it's 9:05 Sunday morning
and we've been bombed
now for over an hour."
[explosion booming]
-[Annette] Penned by a young
sailor named William Czako,
this letter was found
decades later
in a Seattle home
by the new owners.
-"Our anti-aircraft guns
are yammering
and every so often
a bomb strikes
so close as to rock this ship.
We're helpless down here
in the forward engine room
because the main engines
are all tore down.
I'm on the interior
communications
and I can hear
the various stations
screaming at one another.
A man just brought us
our gas masks.
I don't know
why I'm writing this
because if
we're hit with a bomb,
they won't find enough of me...
[explosion booming]
...let alone this letter."
-I think actually troops
even subconsciously
write for history.
They see something, they're part
of world-changing events
and they kind of want there
to be a record of that.
This is what I saw.
History needs to know this.
-"I imagine it's to show myself
I can be calm under fire.
A few of the boys here
are white-faced,
their voices hushed and choked.
They know this is
no joke or mock battle,
but the real stuff."
[soft poignant music]
-[Annette] These were the life
and death perspectives,
not of generals, presidents,
or commanders far removed
from the front lines,
but of young individuals
right there
in the eye of the storm.
[explosion booming]
[guns firing]
-Letter writing is one of
the most democratic forms
of art there is.
You can literally with
a piece of paper and a pencil,
craft something that
will resonate for centuries.
-[Annette]
During the Civil War,
a slave named Spotswood Rice
escaped to freedom and
enlisted in the Union Army.
As his regiment
neared the plantation
where, coincidentally,
Rice had been enslaved
and where his daughter,
Mary, was still in bondage,
he wrote the following letter
to his former master.
-"September 3rd, 1864,
I received a letter
from Caroline
telling me that you say
I tried to steal my child
away from you?
Now, I want you to understand
that Mary is my child
and she is
a God-given right of my own.
We are now making up
about 1,000 Black troops
and when we come,
woe be to
the slave-holding rebels
for we don't expect
to leave them root nor branch.
I offered once to pay you
40 dollars for my own child,
but I'm glad
you did not accept it.
So you just hold on
for as long as you can.
When I come after Mary,
I will have power and
authority to bring her away
and to execute vengeance
on them that holds my child.
And then you will know
how to talk to me.
Spotswood Rice."
-One of the most persistent
enemies in wartime is boredom.
You have these moments
of intense activity,
but then you have like literally
weeks where nothing happens
and you're just
bored out of your mind.
-[sighs] Before you go to war,
there's always
this buildup phase.
We spent a lot of time
sitting in the desert,
staring at sand.
-One letter in particular
that just comes to mind
was written
during Desert Shield,
this Merchant Marine
named Robert Guttman.
[intriguing music]
-"October 11th, 1990,
Desert Shield.
Dear Brudda, can't say
where I am exactly,
loose lips and all that,
but it's the place to be
this season.
Clear skies, bags of sun,
temperatures in the low 110s.
What more could anybody want?
Everybody who's anybody
is here as well.
All you have to do is listen
to the VHF radio telephone.
[in Cockney accent]
'This is a Bri'ish warship
calling the vessel four miles
off my starboard beam.
Be so good as to respond
on channel 16,
or I shall reluctantly
be compelled
to blow you out of the water.
Over.'
[in exaggerated French accent]
'This is a French warship
calling the ship
on my port quarter.
Identify yourself, over.'
[in blustery British accent]
'French warship be damned,
I fly my sovereign's colors
and I'll not heave-to
for any snail-chewing,
garlic-breathed, swab of a frog.
And ye may lay to that, over."
[in gentle Canadian accent]
'Hey, this is a Canadian warship
calling the vessel aboot
three miles away from me.
How's it going, eh?'
[in normal accent]
And then, of course,
there are the Americans.
The Americans don't actually
speak English at all.
They speak Navy.
'Merchant vessel
on course 3-5-2, speed 1-7,
this is Charlie-Oscar,
US Navy warship 3-5-0-0,
yards bearing 2-5-5 relative.
What are your intentions
regarding my unit? Over.'
In any case,
you see that we don't lack
for free entertainment.
We have a couple World War II
veterans on board,
both Merchant Marines.
They volunteered for this trip
and after dodging
U-boats and kamikazes,
they find this
a bit of a yawner.
Give my best to everybody.
Robert."
[lighthearted playful music]
-When we read war letters,
it's different than reading
the commander's report
back to the boss.
It's different than reading
a historical aspect of it.
It is somebody's letter
and that paper is
an extension of somebody,
and there's a connection,
there's a tangible connection.
[soft music]
I'm Colonel Jason Musteen
in the United States Army,
been in the Army since 1990
when I enlisted as a private.
-I love working
with the military
and the veterans
and their families,
their loved ones.
These are people
who have literally said,
"I will put my life at risk
to serve this country."
-I'm Colonel, retired,
Edna Cummings.
When I joined the Army,
I was commissioned through
the Army ROTC program
at Appalachian State University.
Didn't know it at the time,
but I was the first
African American woman
to receive my commission
as an officer
through that program.
-Captain Ed Hrivnak,
US Air Force, retired.
-My name is
Cameron Song Sellers,
retired colonel
in the US Army.
-Richard Bausch, I served in
the United States Air Force.
-My full name
is Kristy De'on Miller.
I go by De'on Miller.
And in the military, I was
Specialist De'on Austin.
-My intent to write home
letters of war,
I wanted people to see
the human aspect of war.
-Letters have always been
important to me
because it solidifies
a moment in history.
It solidifies, you know,
your personal history,
your personal journey,
and it captures, I think,
the essence of that person
and almost like their soul
and spirit in written form.
-[Annette]
Beyond the words on the page,
the stories behind
the letters and emails
often give deeper meaning
and insight
into who the troops are and
why they chose to serve.
-"By now,
you have heard the Army
has called me back
to active duty.
For me, duty,
patriotism, and service
started long before
September 11th."
For me, I was conscious
that America
had defended Korea
in the Korean War.
And I remember when my parents
told me that I was adopted,
I always felt there was a debt
that I needed to pay back.
And that obligation just
never really left me.
"It started 14 years
before I was born
when 43,000 American servicemen
were willing to die
on a peninsula called Korea."
-Letter writing, to the troops,
is important
because they're away
from their family,
from everyone they've known.
There would be times
I would sit outside in Panama
and look up,
because you do get homesick,
and you'd think we share
the same sky. [laughs]
[gentle music]
And I think more and more,
letter writing
is kind of a lost art.
-[Oscar]
Although most people think
that they are war-conscious,
are they really?
-Although this kind of began
as a one man,
all volunteer effort,
I've had some incredible people
help me along the way
and by far the most helpful
has been Megan Smolenyak.
I think she's America's
top genealogist.
[phone line trilling]
[Megan speaking over phone]
-Hey, it's Andy.
[Megan speaking over phone]
-I'm good.
So I've got one tough one
I'd love to get your help on.
It's an older gentleman named
Oscar Mitchell who passed away
and he and I had communicated
when he was alive
and now I just can't find
any of his children
or anyone connected with him.
So I'll send you the details
on that, if that's okay?
[Megan speaking over phone]
-Thank you, Megan.
Talk to you soon.
[Megan speaking over phone]
[light old-timey music]
-As the letters
started coming in,
what really struck me
was the paper just alone.
So this is
the earliest letter we have
written during
the American Revolution
and it's as legible
and as clear
as the day it was written
back in 1775.
This is a letter from
the Civil War,
also very fragile.
This was pulled off the body
of a Confederate soldier
at Chancellorsville
by a Union soldier,
and it's literally splotched
with mud and blood.
So another favorite is one
of the most dynamic examples
of the life and death
circumstances
these troops were in.
So this soldier is
an American fighting in Anzio
for the liberation of Italy.
This is back in April '44.
He's writing
a letter to his friend
about how a shell had
dropped right next to him
but didn't explode.
It was a dud.
And he's like, "By the grace
of God, I'm still alive."
So he writes this letter,
goes into battle,
and he gets
shot through the back.
That's the bullet hole that
went through the letter
and into him.
He recuperated and he survived.
He came back to the States.
But again, it just
gives you an example
of the experiences these
troops encountered.
Even the letters
that I thought were
very kind of commonplace
had secrets to reveal.
This is one of my favorites.
It was written during
World War II by a marine
and he is writing to his wife
and he says, "My beloved,
there are so many things
that I worry about,
mostly you and Aunt Ruth."
When I first read that,
I just thought it was obviously
a kind of a commonplace
expression of concern
for Aunt Ruth.
But the son
who gave me the letters
also gave me the code sheet.
So this is what the marine
left to his wife
back in the States after
he was sent over to the Pacific.
And all these people,
these aunts and uncles,
completely fictitious,
none of them existed.
So next to each one
you have the name of the place
where he assumed that he might
be going to or where he was.
So this is his way
of telling his wife
that he was alive
and where he was headed.
We have
a letter from World War I
and it's a husband and wife
and they had this very kind of
interesting epistolary system
where the wife would hand write
a letter to her husband
who was serving in Europe
during the war.
-"Dear husband,
this is Saturday afternoon
and I have the work all done
and washing on the line.
-"Smart girl."
-And he was able
to type his responses.
He was a clerk,
and then just send the letter
back with his replies.
-"I received a letter
from Pearl.
She is not well at all,
poor girl.
Your mother goes over
to help her
and does the washing
and ironing and baking."
-[Ed] "And talking."
-"I took your picture
to church with me.
You see, I just must have
you with me, that is all.
Everyone thought
you sure was a fine--"
-[Ed] "Fat."
-"...looking young man.
And the preacher said,
'Not only he,
but he is the possessor of
a nice-looking young wife.'
I will look more pretty
when you get home.
Your picture stands in front
of me this very moment.
I just have to kiss
that sweet face
every time I look at you.
Well, I'm gonna stop
a-bragging on you
for you might run away with
some pretty girl over there.
Ha ha."
-[sighs] "There isn't any."
-"Oh, it is mail time,
and I do wanna get this
in the box by 4:30,
so I will have to close.
I could write to you
by the hours.
Take good care of yourself
and I'll do the same.
So bye-bye, my dear hubby.
I enclose all my love for you
from your ever,
ever-loving wife, Goldie."
[typewriter clacking]
-[Ed] "Ed."
[typewriter dings]
[lively music]
-[Annette]
During World War II,
Europe suffered
from one of the worst mail
and package backlogs
with some estimates
totaling two to three years
of undelivered items.
In December, 1944,
the 6-triple-8 Central Postal
Directory Battalion was formed.
-Every time I think of
the 6-triple-8,
I get like, really excited
because they represented
African Americans,
Black people, America,
with such dignity and class
because they made it possible
for men and women
stationed all over Europe
to be able to communicate
with their families.
-Europe had the worst
of the mail backlog.
Christmas packages and letters
were not being delivered
to the troops,
and the families at home
were not receiving mail.
So the Army's Adjuvant General
alerted the Army
basically saying,
"Hey, if we don't solve this,
the Allied victory
may be in jeopardy
because troops are losing
their will to fight."
[soft music]
-The 6-triple-8
was commanded by
my mother,
Charity Adams Earley.
She was incredibly bright.
Not only could she
analyze things very well,
but she really
was very thorough.
-I think she looked at it as
a systems engineering problem.
"I have thousands of tons
of mail in a warehouse,
aircraft hangers,
how can I maximize throughput?"
And so, three shifts,
65,000 pieces of mail
per shift.
195,000 pieces of mail they
routed and processed every day.
The Army thought
it would take six months,
they got it done in three.
[drill sergeant shouts]
[music continues]
-She had a sense of the mission
in the operational sense
that was critical,
but she also had a sense
of the battle about race
and the battle about gender.
The attitude toward
African Americans
and African American women
in particular was,
"You're going to fail.
You can't succeed because
you're not capable."
And frankly,
the 6-triple-8 was very capable
and showed
that they not only could do
as well as anyone,
but could do better.
-Charity Adams was
a heck of a leader
because when you have
passion for your purpose
and passion for the mission,
you'll find a way to
get it done against all laws.
And that's what
the 6-triple-8 did,
and that's why they received
the Congressional Gold Medal.
They solved the Army's
mail and morale problem
when no one else could.
-The letters literally
kept people alive.
The act of
writing these letters,
the act of being able
to connect to people
that they love back home,
and the work
these women were doing,
these women were true heroes.
[music continues]
-What I was writing was
what I saw and what I felt,
but I was capturing
what happens
at the human level,
how it affects them,
how it changes them,
and how it affects
everyone down the line.
-That's what letter writing does
because everybody's trying
to control the narrative,
but you can't control letters.
There's something about
putting pen to paper
or put it on a computer screen.
We can look past the textbooks
and get that quintessential
American experience.
-[Annette] Yank,
the Army Weekly was a magazine
distributed
to US service members
throughout World War II,
keeping them
up to date on events
and allowing them
to write into mail call
with comments and even gripes.
One of the most noteworthy
letters was written
by a young Black corporal
and published on
April 28th, 1944.
-April 28th, 1944.
"Dear Yank, here's a question
that each
Negro soldier is asking.
What is the Negro soldier
fighting for?
Myself and eight other soldiers
were on our way
from Camp Claiborne, Louisiana.
We had to lay over until
the next day for our train.
We could not
purchase a cup of coffee
at any of the lunch rooms
around there.
The only place where we could
be served was at the lunchroom
at the railroad station,
but of course we had
to go into the kitchen.
But that's not all.
11:30 AM, about two dozen
German prisoners of war
with two American guards
came into the station,
they sat at the tables,
had their meals served,
talked, smoked,
had a swell time.
I stood on the outside
looking on
and I could not help
but ask myself these questions.
Are these men sworn enemies
of this country?
Are they not taught to hate
and destroy
all democratic governments?
Are we not American soldiers
sworn to fight for
and die if need be
for this country?
Then why are they being
treated better than we are?
Some of the boys are saying
that you will
not print this letter.
I'm saying that you will.
Corporal Rupert Trimmingham,
Fort Huachuca, Arizona."
[soft poignant music]
-[Annette]
The corporal's letter
prompted
an outpouring of support,
including from
many white readers
who agreed with Trimmingham
about the military's
double standard toward
the more than one million
American Black troops
fighting in World War II.
Their sacrifices
and the growing Civil Rights
movement in the post-war era
eventually led President Truman
to sign an executive order
in July, 1948,
that would officially
desegregate the military.
-There is no justifiable reason
for discrimination
because of ancestry,
or religion,
or race, or color.
[crowd applauding]
-I see these letters as
kind of the first draft
of not just national history,
but world history.
They're kind of the world's
great undiscovered literature.
Just think of all these
millions of letters
that are still out there.
You never know
what you're gonna find.
[cassette clattering]
[soft static buzzing]
[Aaron speaking on recording]
[somber music]
[explosions booming]
[Aaron speaking on recording]
[indistinct chatter]
[guns firing]
[explosion booming]
[indistinct shouting]
[distant gunfire]
[soft melancholy music]
and it was early
in the day their time,
when he died, it would've been
two in the morning my time.
"Lance Corporal Aaron Austin,
team leader,
Echo Company, First Marine
Division killed in action
on April 26th, 2004,
in Fallujah."
Let's go in.
Here is actually one
of the greatest things.
I think it was a year ago,
one of his fellow marines
came across this.
-This is a recording of...?
-Of Aaron's voice to Tiffany,
his fianc at that time.
Actually, it turned out he
was killed on this exact date.
[Aaron speaking on recording]
-When we hear of
a service member
killed in action,
we kind of just--we envision
the service member,
but, you know,
what the parents are thinking of
is the baby boy.
-"Aaron Cole Austin was
born on July 1st, 1982,
in Amherst, Texas.
Sent home on the 4th of July.
He was my breastfed,
blanket-sucking baby boy.
He threw his blanket away
when he was 10.
God, how I wish
for that blanket now."
-"It surely would've carried
some scent.
You couldn't even bleach it out.
My mother once told me
that when it came to Aaron,
my parenting skills
bordered on contributing
to the delinquency of a minor.
Aaron always knew
how to charm me,
how to make me smile.
He used to call me Mama
when he wanted something.
I got called Mama a lot."
-[Andrew] And here,
now these are your cammies.
-Right. He would dress up
in my uniform.
He was always
going around saluting
and it became his passion.
And so when 9/11 happened,
he actually swore in
October 22nd, 2001.
[Aaron speaking on recording]
[soft somber music]
-"At times,
I believe I can learn
to live a life without my son.
After all, I must.
And I am certain
there are other mothers
who've lost their boys
who can shop
at the local grocers
without the macaroni
and cheese boxes
suddenly causing them grief.
But the memory of Aaron is
in everything around me.
So much of him has been lost,
is fading, breaking down,
his blanket,
his watch, his uniform."
-[De'on] So, Andy, these are for
your War Letters Project.
-[Andrew]
I cannot thank you enough.
-I cannot thank you enough
for taking care of 'em.
-We will.
-"Long after he died,
I found a letter I wrote to him
that he never received.
It's not really
something of his
since he never got it,
but still, it's ours.
In my mind, I add
a postscript to that letter.
What I could write
to my son if I could.
I miss you, Aaron,
with all of me,
all of the time.
I was, am, and will always
remain so very proud of you.
I just never really believed
that your time
would come before mine.
But son,
you know we are forever.
By the grace of God,
I'll join you someday."
-"I'll meet
the mystery of it all too
and we will be together.
And how good it will be
to see you again.
Mom."
[soft poignant music]
-It's hard to imagine killing
an individual somebody.
People are always
killing the enemy,
some shadow,
some...something they fear
because they don't
know the person.
That is where it all comes from.
Killing comes from
the abstractions,
and it's in the particular,
it's where love resides and
where understanding lives.
And God knows there isn't
anything more important
than these letters because
that's what they provide.
They provide the individual
window into the individual life.
[gentle music]
[child laughing]
-"Dearest Beryl, this is
our second letter to you
since you set out
on your big adventure.
And we suppose
you were very surprised
when you arrived at Aunt Emmy's
to find a letter
waiting for you.
We will send them each week."
[air raid siren blaring]
-In the late spring of 1940,
so for the first time,
Britain was beginning to think
of the possibility invasion
as well as bombing.
-[Annette]
Under this pressure,
the British government
began initiating a plan
to take children
out of the major cities
and into more rural areas
of the country
or even to other nations.
-"We expect
you enjoyed your voyage
across the wide Atlantic.
How would you like to be
a nurse on a big ocean liner
when you grow up, dear?"
-Beryl Myatt's mum had
an aunt who lived in Canada
and they clearly felt
that Winnipeg
was gonna be
a lot safer than London.
And so, they put in
an application for Beryl.
And Beryl is selected.
12th of September, 1940,
she was designated to go
in the SS City of Benares.
-[Annette]
Beryl's mother, Emmie,
airmailed
a cheerful letter to her,
hoping it would arrive
in Canada before Beryl.
-"Now, sweetheart, don't
forget what we told you,
show Auntie and Uncle
that you really appreciate
the opportunity
that they have given you
to have a holiday
in one of the most interesting
countries in the world."
-For the first couple of days,
they had a naval escort.
But then on to the end
of the 16th of September,
the naval escort turned
around to bring back in
the homeward bound convoy,
and so it went on alone.
-[Annette]
What Mrs. Myatt didn't know
is that the ship taking
Beryl to North America
was spotted by a German U-boat.
-"You remember
the photograph you had taken
at Christchurch School?
Well, Mummy wants to know
if you'd like us
to send it on to you."
-[Nigel] The U-boat captain
fired a torpedo
and it ripped into
the back of the ship,
near the engine room.
[explosion booming]
They stood
almost no chance at all.
-"The weather here is still
fairly nice.
What kind of weather
are you having?"
[dark somber music]
-[Annette]
Of the 90 children
who had boarded
the passenger ship for safety,
77 died.
Among the dead was Beryl Myatt,
her body lost at sea.
-"Please give our love
to Auntie and Uncle
and when you write,
you must tell us all about
what you're doing.
With tons of love and heaps
of kisses, God bless you.
Mummy and Daddy."
-In all the years that
I've been doing this project,
this is by far one of
the most unique donations
and I actually had to do
a lot of research on it
'cause even I didn't know
what it was when I first got it.
And so, I thought that
this was a roll of film.
It turns out that each one of
these is actually a letter.
So I came across one
and it was addressed
to Mrs. Fred Mills
at The Bourne Arms Hotel.
And then it has
the address of the hotel,
Knott End-on-Sea in England.
This was never delivered.
And so, through a dear friend
of mine, Megan Smolenyak,
we were able to track down
the Mills' son,
who's still alive,
'cause I wanna show him
the airgraphs
that his father wrote
to his mother
back in World War II.
[phone line trilling]
-Hey, it's Andy.
Do you have a second?
-One of the people that
Megan has helped me find
is Colin Mills,
the son of Fred Mills,
who wrote that airgraph.
So we didn't
even have his address.
How did you track him down?
[Megan speaking over phone]
-And--and thanks to that,
we found Colin, his son.
[Megan speaking over phone]
-And I was thinking how
great it would be to meet
at The Bourne Arms,
which is still there.
And he told me he's gonna
be close by for a wedding
and so,
we're gonna see if we can try
and connect in England.
[gentle music]
-I was nine years old
when my father died.
So what I remember of my father
is very vague, really.
'Cause I've got bits and pieces
of his service record
at home in the loft,
which has probably
laid there for 30 years
and I never give it a thought
to go out there
and look at them.
Wow, this is surreal, this.
But since Andrew Carroll
contacted me
about these war letters
from my father to my mother,
I started to look into
my father's life more.
I wonder if my father
pulled up in this spot
when he visited my mum.
[music continues]
My mother served in
the Land Army during the war.
And what the Land Army did was
they basically took the jobs
that the soldiers,
sailors, and airmen did
while they went off
to fight the war.
Quite lost for words, really.
-[woman] Quite moving.
-Because my father wrote
about The Bourne Arms,
I presume that when his boat
came in from Liverpool,
he must have
traveled from Liverpool
to The Bourne Arms
to see my mother.
Is it time we go inside
and have a look?
-[woman] I know.
-Wow.
I didn't really talk much
to my mother about it
'cause it used to upset her
and all she used to say was,
"He just died too young."
Wonder if it's changed
very much
from the '40s.
-[woman] Yeah.
-But I wish I'd have
asked her more.
I feel like
I've been here before.
-Yeah.
Has his presence, hasn't it?
And getting these war letters,
it's brought it all
closer to you, Colin.
-It's brought it back
to life, yeah, yeah.
In a strange way.
In a strange way.
Andrew, since you've emailed me,
this is the moment,
this is the moment...
I've waited for for two months.
[indistinct chatter]
-[Andrew] So there, of course,
is the letter,
Mrs. Fred Mills,
The Bourne Arms,
which that's what started all.
-It says, "Just think,
another 13 days to go,
and we will be two years
of married life.
A lot of that time
we have had to waste
because of this blasted war.
But our reunion
will be that much sweeter
after this long time apart."
It's, yeah, I'm quite
touched with this actually.
Although
I didn't know his voice
or don't remember his voice,
I can imagine him saying this.
Your work is amazing.
-[Andrew] Thank you.
-[Colin] It really is.
-You know, again,
I'm the one who's just
so grateful to you
to open up for this story.
And what I never take for
granted is just how, you know,
personal these stories are.
-But these are moments in time
which should never be lost,
should they?
-[woman] Makes them more real.
-Absolutely.
Yeah. Absolutely.
He's here now.
[gentle music]
I'm 71 years old and I never
knew anything about this
until these war letters came.
Thanks to Andrew Carroll
with these war letters,
he's opened up
a new world to me,
something I never knew
about my parents.
This is brilliant,
I wouldn't have missed this
for the world.
-I was in Belgium
and I went to the World War I
Museum and Archive
and one of
the archivists said, you know,
"Should we show him the letter
by the sexually frustrated
German World War I housewife?"
And the other archivist
was like, "No, no, no,
he's looking for
more serious stuff."
"No, no, I would be very
interested in that letter."
And so, they showed me
a translated copy.
-"January 2nd, 1917.
Dear leader of the company,
I, as signed below, have
a request to make of you.
Although my husband has
only been in the field
for four months,
I would like to ask you to grant
him a leave of absence,
namely because of
our physical relationship."
-I'd also like to note
references to sexual matters
weren't unheard of
in letters from our own wars,
even those
dating back to the 1800s.
-"March 27th, 1863.
Mr. Lincoln,
when this war broke out,
I went right in, I did.
And fought
and bled for the cause,
and left my wife."
-"I would like to have
my husband at least once
for the satisfaction
of my natural desires."
-"And when I came home
on furlough last month,
I found out that she had
been diddling other men.
[dramatic drum music]
And I would like
to have a discharge,
for she diddles all the time."
-"I just can't live like this
anymore."
-"And she has got the clap,
which I now have got too."
-[Mrs. S] "I would like
to ask you very kindly
to grant my request."
-[John] "And I want a discharge
for when I get well."
-"I will then be able
to carry on
until we are victorious.
With all reverence, Mrs. S."
-[Andrew] For the record,
the leave was not granted.
-"If you will do as I say,
I for you will pray.
Yours truly and
affectionately, John N."
-In this case,
the leave was approved.
It doesn't matter
what war it is,
Civil War, Vietnam, Korea,
World War II,
troops love getting letters.
This was their connection
to their loved ones.
-[Nancy] My dad enlisted
in 1942.
-So they met by chance
at a wedding.
They just went on a few dates
and then he went off to--
-Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
-Camp Shelby.
-[Nancy] By the third letter,
he's signing it,
"forever yours."
-[Andrew] Wow.
-And they were like that
as they got old.
They both lived to be 93.
-[Andrew] And so, these are
some of those early letters.
-Yes.
"It's only been a week,
but loved you for eternity.
Love, Jack."
-Wow.
-One week. [chuckles]
They literally fell in love
through letters.
-[Andrew] You know,
all the experiences
that they don't have
because they're not at home...
So it just reminds you that
these are human beings.
-"My love,
I try not to count the days
until I see you again.
I miss the parting of
your lips as we kiss.
And I miss our home,
built of work,
sweat, and years of sacrifice."
-That time away,
the strain on relationships.
We focus, understandably,
on the physical wounds,
on life and death.
But the sacrifices
these troops make
and their families make,
you know, is far beyond that.
-"Worlds apart
and yet together,
with a longing for you."
-Every single one of these
people is somebody's child,
maybe a parent themself,
a spouse, a sweetheart.
And they're not numbers,
that these are real people.
-[Annette]
Less than five years
after the end of World War II,
US service members were
once again deployed overseas,
this time to fight in Korea.
One of these young men
was a 19-year-old
artillery gunner named Leon.
[soft somber music]
-"June 15th, 1953, Korea.
Dear babe, I just
received your last letter
in this morning's mail.
I held it in my hand
for a minute
while a little voice in the back
of my head whispered,
'This is it.
This is the one.'
Yeah, I knew it was coming.
I could tell from the tone
of your last few letters."
-Obviously, you know,
the troops
loved getting letters.
There was one very
definite exception to that,
and it's what became known
as a Dear John letter.
And that's where,
whether it's a fianc,
it could even be a wife
saying, "You know what?
I found someone else,"
or "I'm just no longer
in love with you."
And that's that.
-"You tried
to let me down easy.
Well, if it's any consolation
to you,
you did it about as well as
a thing like that can be done.
You asked me if I understand.
I do.
I never said I was
the greatest guy on Earth.
You did.
I just, you know,
agreed with you.
Now what?
Do I say something brilliant
like 'if you ever
need a friend'?
That presumes a future.
[guns firing]
There are 500,000 North Koreans
on the other side of that hill,
bound and determined to make
sure I don't have a future.
Over here,
your past is your last breath
and your future
is your next breath.
You don't make
too many promises.
Which leaves me what?
Goodbye.
Leon."
[guns firing]
-[Annette] Shortly after
writing this letter,
Leon, on his own initiative,
charged
an enemy machine gun nest
and was killed
almost instantly.
[emotional music]
25-year-old John Pohlman
was working as
a Peace Corps volunteer in Fiji
when he was
drafted to fight in Vietnam.
Three weeks
after arriving in country,
he wrote to
a close friend in the States
about his views
on the conflict.
-"Dear Carolyn,
it would be interesting to know
what you're expecting
me to say,
either to confirm
your suspicions
that the Army has made
a conservative establishment
tool out of me
or bolster your own
anti-war feelings.
I'm afraid
you're gonna get neither.
My outlook has narrowed
considerably in the last month
since I arrived in Vietnam.
It doesn't make
a bit of difference
whether I feel
the war is just or unjust,
politically or morally.
The fact is that I'm here
and will be
for the next 11 months.
That is my own very selfish
compulsive interest right now.
Survival.
I developed
this mental tunnel vision
during a mortar attack
the first night I was here.
I mean, something
happens to your mind
when you realize there
are people out there
trying to kill you.
It doesn't matter
that it isn't me,
but what I represent,
when somebody shoots at me,
I take it personally.
It's a weird experience.
To be continued.
Love and kisses,
John."
-[Annette]
Captain George Rarey,
an American pilot and
artist stationed in England
during World War II,
was informed of
the birth of his first child
just moments
after returning to base.
-"Junie, I got back
from a mission
at four o'clock this afternoon
and what did I see
the deacon waving at me
as I walked up
the road to the shack?
A small yellow envelope.
I thought it was a little early,
but I quit breathing completely
until the wonderful news
unfolded.
A son!
Junie, I'm so proud of you,
I'm beside myself.
I was just getting down
to the really serious part
of the floor pacing
when wham, I find that Junie
has done the whole thing
without the moaning and
the hollering from the old man.
And they say
woman is the weaker sex.
Fooie!
Junie, if this letter
makes no sense, forget it,
I'm sort of delirious.
This iron hut
looks like a castle.
The overcast sky is
the most beautiful kind of blue
I've ever seen.
My mind is a little jumbled
and I want to take a walk
and just sort of order
my thoughts a little.
Sweet dreams, my sweet mother.
Love, George."
-[Annette] On July 11th,
1944, George Saito,
a member of
the all-Japanese American
442nd Regimental Combat Team,
wrote a letter to his father,
who was currently being held
in an internment camp
in the United States.
George's brother Calvin
had just been killed in battle
four days earlier.
-"Dear Dad,
I believe the War Department
has notified
you of our loss of Calvin.
I've just learned
of his passing.
On the 6th of July,
his unit was attacking a hill
held by the enemy.
Cal being the radio man
somehow got a call through
to the artillery
to open fire on the enemy.
And he personally directed,
and guiding the firing,
which routed the enemy.
His action
and doing his job well
at this one instance
saved many of his buddies.
He happened to be
one of the unlucky ones.
All the fellows were telling me
what a good soldier he was.
And that his loss
was keenly felt.
Dad, this is not time
to be preaching to you,
but in spite of
Cal's supreme sacrifice,
don't let anyone tell you
that he was foolish
or made a mistake to volunteer.
Of what I've seen
in my travels on our mission,
I am more than convinced
that we've done the right thing
in spite of what has
happened in the past.
America is a damn good country.
Cheer up, Dad,
and do take care of yourself."
-[Annette] Just three months
after writing to his father,
George Saito died in action.
The 442nd would go on to become
one of the most
highly decorated units
in American history.
George Rarey was
shot down over France
while providing air cover
to Allied troops at Normandy.
He did not survive.
And the 26-year-old pilot
would never see
or hold his newborn son.
And John Pohlman,
who wrote to his friend,
Carolyn,
on the morning
of April 15th, 1970,
about just wanting to survive
the next 11 months in Vietnam,
was killed later that day.
[car horns honking]
-Every single one
of the letters
is a single someone
and it becomes
very, very difficult
to think of people
in monolithic terms
or in terms of some sort of
representative of a culture.
You see individual people.
-I'd been working on
the project
for about five years focusing
on American correspondences.
And it was actually American
veterans who encouraged me
to seek out letters
from other countries,
which led to
the journey around the world.
Now, I did lie to my family,
'cause they knew that I was
going to the Middle East.
I said, "Don't worry,
I'm not gonna go--
I'm not stupid.
I'm not gonna go to Afghanistan,
I'm not gonna go to Iraq,
come on."
[gentle inquisitive music]
Even though I was going
into active war zones,
my biggest fear was really
coming out empty-handed.
But we had
thousands of translators
who we were working with.
These were Iraqis who--
I wanted to just see like,
what were you writing
during this period?
-"It is hard to tell
the situation here.
It is bad,
very bad.
I can't even get out
of my own car
as I might be killed
by the robbers,
or by a mine put
by the side of the road,
or by a firefight between
Americans and some people.
Death is not an accident, eh?
No.
It is the only real,
stable, possible thing.
My home had become a target
for those who are pretending
to resist the invasion,
and they had
kidnapped my brother,
sent me a message to quit
or they would kill him,
so I did.
I don't know what to do.
Write to me about you.
I need to hear from you.
Khadum."
-I came here and
people opened up
and ended up
sharing letters and emails
and that wouldn't have
happened without the experience
of actually going there.
[gentle music]
-I think because of
the letters I wrote,
my brothers and sisters
were a little standoffish
to me at first.
-"Our patient load from
Baghdad to Landstuhl
included: gunshot wound,
or GSW, to the stomach,
partial amputations
from a landmine,
open fractures
secondary to GSW,
a head injury/struck by a tank,
blast injuries, shrapnel
injuries, and dislocations."
-My first letters were
of excitement and success,
and as the letters went on,
they got darker.
-"One trooper confides in me
that he witnessed
some Iraqi children
get run over by a convoy.
He was in the convoy
and they had
strict orders not to stop.
If a vehicle stops,
it is isolated,
and it's an inviting target
for a rocket-propelled grenade.
He tells me that
some women and children
have been forced out
onto the road
to break up the convoys
so that the Iraqi irregulars
can get a clear shot.
But the convoys do not stop.
He tells me
that dealing with that image
is worse than
the pain of his injury."
-[Ed] You read about it,
hell, you see it in movies.
-[Ed, actor] " Ed."
-But when you see
an 18-year-old kid
who is looking
right through you,
it looks like his soul is gone.
[soft somber music]
-[Annette] Dr. Lisa Blackman,
a 32-year-old
US Air Force Captain,
worked as
a clinical psychologist
at the Al Udeid Air Base
in Qatar,
treating American troops
fighting in Iraq.
-"Lately, I've had a string
of trauma evaluations.
I had no initial clue
that the problems
were combat related.
None of these guys or gals
said, 'I was in combat,'
or 'I saw someone die.'
None connected these experiences
to their symptoms.
It was as if
they didn't remember
how hard and
unusual it is to be at war.
They're used to the danger.
They've been out here too long.
Why would a war mess
with your mood, right?"
-[Annette]
In World War I and II,
letters home
were heavily censored.
But from the Korean War
to present day,
troops could write more freely,
especially when it came
to combat and killing.
-"In an operation of this size,
there's a lot of confusion.
Intelligence reports said
the hill was heavily fortified
and that only NVA, VC,
and their families lived there.
Any civilians
nearby become expendable
on the theory that
you cannot take a chance
on their having concealed
weapons or grenades.
You must always
act under the assumption
that the fire you hear
is enemy fire.
By the time you find out
if someone has a weapon
or is a simple farmer,
he could empty 30 rounds
from an AK-47 in you."
-"Each evaluation started
with the typical questions.
What brought you in today?
When did the problem start?
How's your sleep?
Et cetera, et cetera.
I kept asking questions
and thinking that
the symptoms didn't add up.
Something wasn't right."
-"Dear folks,
I'm sorry I haven't
wrote you in quite a while,
but if you've been
listening to the news,
you could pretty well
figure out why."
-[Lisa] "So I ask, 'Have you
ever been in combat?'"
-"Saigon was hit heavy
and we were too.
I don't know if I should
tell you this or not,
but I have to tell somebody
and I can't tell Linda
because
she would worry too much.
I think I might have
killed a person."
-[Lisa] "Apparently,
this is a question
with the power to unglue
because all of these
troops burst into tears
at the mention
of the word combat."
-We do a really good job
in all militaries, anywhere,
training soldiers to fight.
We don't spend much time
talking about how to deal
with killing
once it has happened.
-"We were fired at,
and I seen some men
running with rifles
so I opened fire on them and
one of them fell to the ground."
-"Each time I sit there offering
tissues, saying I'm sorry,
trying to normalize,
trying to say,
'It was not your fault
that so-and-so died
and you had
a right to be scared.'"
-"People who think that troops
should always
restrain themselves
are simply asking too much
of human nature."
-"I don't know if I should
tell you the things
that happen over here
because not too many
of the guys write home about it,
but the pressure builds up in me
and I just have
to tell somebody."
-"And even worse,
'Yes, you killed someone
and you still deserve to go back
to your family
and live your life.'"
-"Linda might not be able
to live with me
knowing that her husband
has killed a person."
-"They sit
in their carpeted homes
and say, 'Control yourselves.
Don't give in to your emotions.'
They've never had
a friend hit a booby trap
and ship the pieces home
in a rubber sack.
This is not a soap opera, okay?
People do not
live happily ever after
and come back to life
for tomorrow's episode.
This is war.
I'll give you a news flash
to everyone back in the States,
they're playing
for keeps over here."
-"Next time you're hanging out
with a friend,
think about what you would do
if he turned you
and said, 'My boss
made me kill someone
and I know I'm
going to hell for it.'
What would you say
to normalize that?
I can't stop
thinking about the fact
that these folks
have lost something
that they will never get back."
-"We have crisp weather here.
Fog is very heavy, every day.
I can watch it flow
from valley to valley.
I'm gonna take
some pictures of it."
-[Lisa] "Innocence."
-"Love, Bob."
-[Lisa] "My heart hurts
for them."
-[Annette] After his first trip
around the world,
Andrew Carroll
wrote about his experiences
in
National Geographic Magazine,
and the article sparked
an unexpected collaboration.
-So this director,
John Bennetts,
sent me an email
where he's like, you know,
"I've read about your story,
I've now read the letters.
And I think
there's kind of a way
to bring this all together
to make a play."
And this project, really for
its own survival has to be,
you know, just, it's about
the service members
and their families
and their experiences.
[gentle music]
[indistinct chatter]
I mean, the energy of that,
to see these letters
come to life on a stage,
it was just one more way
of bringing this new breath
of life into the project.
-No one can pinpoint
the experience
other than people
who have been through it.
And I think that anything
that connects people to it
is significant.
-"I want you to understand,
that Mary is my child."
They were there.
"The Japanese are being..."
They know what it feels like.
They know what it looks like.
They know the whole experience.
So for us to be able to
receive that is very important
and it strikes the emotional
chord that we need,
but it also is just
a very truthful expression.
There's no filter
between us and them.
-In most cases,
the people who wrote them
are victims of
the atrocity of war.
[aircraft whooshing]
The loss,
the grief, the longing,
all the things
that have come with it.
[soft somber piano music]
"We held hands and ran
with the screaming masses
of panicked people.
I noticed, though,
that everyone kept turning
around and looking up.
We all did.
And that's when I saw both
World Trade Center buildings
above me in flames
and someone jump.
Black smoke was billowing
out from the buildings.
People are screaming,
'America's under attack.
We've gone to war.'
I was frantic to get in touch
with anyone in my family.
I wasn't sure if I was gonna
live through that day
and wanted to
be able to let anyone
and everyone know
how much I loved them.
I watched
the first building fall.
[muffled rumbling]
There was so much commotion,
screams, noise, confusion.
The air around us
was starting to get darker
and massive herds
of screaming people
started running
from this black wall
that was quickly approaching.
I remember thinking,
'This is it,
this will kill us all.'
[music continues]
All five of us got down and
put our faces to the ground,
and the men covered us
with their jackets and shirts.
We stayed in that huddle
for what seems like forever
until finally we realized
that people had begun
to move around.
I looked around
at all of us with gray hair,
bloodied clothes.
I just recall thinking,
'Everyone looks the same
and we're all going
through the same thing,
each of us, Black, white,
Japanese, we're all the same.'
And I think we all felt...
there's no words
to appropriately convey it,
the preciousness of life,
the importance
of expressing love,
the desperateness to be with
those who we care about.
My love to each of you.
Anna."
[engine rumbling]
[soft poignant piano music]
-[Annette]
On February 24th, 2022,
under the orders of
President Vladimir Putin,
Russia launched an unprovoked
invasion of Ukraine.
-[Andrew] So,
I'm here in Ukraine,
visiting a refugee center
for young people
and I'm bringing letters
written by American students
and hoping to get them
to also to write letters
about their experiences.
[Inna speaking Ukrainian]
-One for you.
[Angelina speaking Ukrainian]
[Inna speaking Ukrainian]
[child speaking Ukrainian]
-[Andrew] I hope
these letters will bring
just a little bit of hope
to the students
and let them know that other
people are thinking about them.
[Inna speaking Ukrainian]
-It's--it's very beautiful.
[Angelina speaking Ukrainian]
-"On Friday,
I went out with a patrol
of 82nd Airborne Infantry
guys on a mission.
It was good
to get outside the wire,
and see what this country
is all about.
Unfortunately,
this place is dirt poor,
much worse than Bosnia.
As we drove through a village,
all the school children
had gathered outside.
They were light and dark,
and had different color hair,
and they were
all in good spirits.
Children are children,
I suppose.
Please pray for
the victims over here.
They are much more
our brothers and sisters
than I think we know."
-War's brutality is the secret
that even civilized societies
keep from themselves.
[soft somber music]
[Lucja speaking Polish]
-[Andrew] And one of
the things that I read
was that the local villagers
helped the inmates
when they could,
at great personal risk.
[Lucja speaking Polish]
[Chaim speaking Polish]
-These letters have enormous
power to bring us together
and to show
the best of human nature,
but I have to confront the fact
that they also
show us the worst.
[somber music]
-[Annette] Although
no single correspondence
can capture
the full spectrum of warfare,
when woven together,
the letters create a clearer
and clearer image
of what war demands of those
experiencing it firsthand.
-[Megan] Hey Andy, it's Megan.
I just wanna update you
about Ed Buster Mitchell.
I found the nephew of
the person that he's writing to
and he lives in New York.
-One of the, you know,
great joys is, you know,
when I find
that original letter.
-"April 15th, 1944.
Dear Helen,
you say that you wish
you were over here.
Although most people think
that they are war-conscious,
[cannons booming]
are they really?
So far removed from
the far-flung battlefronts,
how can they be?"
-So, I have a photocopy of
that letter by Oscar Mitchell,
but because it's been
so fundamental
in kind of shifting
my perspective,
and I really wanna get
ahold of the original,
and there's just something
about having that, you know,
that same letter, that same
piece of paper that Oscar held
and to hold it in your hands
is really special.
[gentle music]
[horn honks]
-I am Jeff Hairston-Smith.
Helen Hairston-Burley
is my aunt, my mother's sister,
and my aunt was the girlfriend
of Oscar Mitchell while
he was in World War II.
This is my aunt's apartment.
When she had to move
into long-term care,
I noticed this stack of papers
that looked really old
and it looked important,
thought, "Well, she's saving
this for some reason."
So what I did was organize
them chronologically.
-Okay,
so these are Oscar's letters.
-[Jeff] Uh-huh. Seven letters
in there from Oscar.
-[Oscar] "April 15th..."
-[Andrew] All right.
-[Oscar] "...1944.
Dear Helen."
[intriguing music]
-Wait, this is it, like,
I'm a literally getting chills.
You know, this story has been
such a huge part
of this project.
So, "Although most people think
they're war-conscious,
are they really?
So far removed from
the far-flung battlefronts,
how can they be?
You really are
war-conscious..."
-[Andrew and Oscar]
"...when you see the airplanes
in formation
early in the morning
flying to meet
their rendezvous..."
-"...then see the same formation
returning in the evenings.
But the number is not the same.
12 went out,
but only nine returned."
[J. Thuiller speaking French]
[unsettling piano music]
-"You stand there, looking up,
watching them
fly into the distance,
into and part of the horizon,
then disappear.
You wonder
what really did happen."
-"I came across
one of our boys,
decomposed
beyond all recognition.
He lay just as he had fallen,
and his head was missing.
His rifle and helmet
lay close by,
and we buried
what remained of him.
I tried to find something
by which he might be identified,
but it was impossible.
Poor boy.
In some far away home,
someone will be mourning
the loss of a husband,
son, or sweetheart.
And the saddest of all is...
they will never know
how he died
or where he is buried."
-"Those who went down
in flames,
do they die as you see them
in the movies?
I don't think so.
Not with a smile on their lips
and a happy gleam
in their eyes,
but rather painfully
and with the knowledge
that this is it."
-"It is terrible to hear
the singing of a bullet
and follow its course
as it flies on its way,
and then to hear
that keen whistle
of the little piece of lead
suddenly
terminate in a dull crush
as the ball
leaps through the brain
of some friend beside you.
[music continues]
[insects chirring]
It had burst a human skull.
Then I saw Sergeant Chauncey
Goldsmith quivering and dying,
and every one of us
could not refrain
from casting a glance
at the dying man
who laid trembling in every limb
and the blood
spurting from his nostrils
and the wound in his forehead."
-"You'd have to see
the wounded streaming back
from the front after a battle,
above all to see the light
go out of men's eyes,
young men shaking from
nervous exhaustion and crying.
Strong men they are,
or were, who did not
or will not have the chance
ever to live normal lives."
-"Dear Mother,
yesterday, the president
and Mrs. Wilson
spent the hours from
10:25 AM until three PM
in an uninterrupted visit
to our hospital.
President talked with everyone.
Before leaving,
the president asked our colonel
if any had been missed.
The colonel replied
that he thought at best,
that he omit
visiting the jaw ward,
as practically all
jaw cases in France
have been assembled there.
Even after
it was explained to him
that it is really
a terrible shock at first,
even for doctors and
nurses to enter that ward,
Mr. Wilson replied,
'But they know I'm here?
I'll go in.'
The Wilsons,
exhibiting splendid courage,
went through the entire ward,
shaking the hand of every man.
It is there
that the true conception
of the horrors of
so-called civilized warfare
are painfully evident.
Strong, virile young men,
permanently disfigured.
Shrapnel has done
its dastardly work
in most of the cases while,
in others, bullets have
exploded in their mouths.
Some entire
lower jaws are missing.
Of all my assignments,
this one in the jaw ward
has been the most horrible.
I fear that I shall always
have those faces,
with those haunting,
questioning eyes before me.
Alta May."
-[Annette] Looking back,
what struck Andrew Carroll
was that what so many of
the letter writers expressed
was the impossibility of
making any sense of warfare.
They had witnessed
mankind's capacity
for violence and destruction,
but they had also seen
firsthand our potential
for forgiveness
and reconciliation.
-"I'm coming home,
it's official
as of this morning.
I'm looking forward
to seeing you again,
but I am in no hurry
to see the expressions on
your faces when you see me.
I've spent 12 months
over here in Korea,
the longest 30 years of my life.
Is it true some people eat
three times a day or more
and they sit on
a chair by a table?
Can't they dig a hole
in the backyard
like everybody else?
God, there were times I would've
traded my soul for a drink
of cold water
or a cup of hot coffee."
-My dad talked about
his Korean War experience,
mostly by writing.
He expressed
his emotions through letters.
He was much better at writing
than he was at speaking.
-"You know, it's almost funny.
We see a guy on crutches
and we break our backs
trying to help him.
But what about
the wounds you can't see?
The phantoms, the nightmares,
the ghosts in your head?"
-When he wrote this letter,
he was trying to express
to his parents
that "I may not be the same
person that I went in.
I may be changed
not only physically,
but psychologically."
-I knew immediately
I was a different person.
I put on a life jacket
to go wakeboarding,
and when I put
the life jacket on,
it was like putting on
my body armor again,
and I got in the water
and had like,
this severe panic attack.
So I knew something was wrong.
And so I went and got help.
-"I'm gonna tell you now,
you'll need a lot
of patience with me.
Patience and understanding.
We all will."
-When he talked about
having patience,
you need a lot of patience
with my father.
So he became the weapon
that he was firing.
[gentle somber music]
-And it's not like, okay,
you go to this treatment thing
and boom, you're cured,
and now the old
Ed Hrivnak is back.
And guess what?
You never get to meet
the old Ed Hrivnak.
He doesn't exist anymore.
The old Ed,
the old Ed Hrivnak
is on a plane somewhere
with casualty--casualties.
This is a new and
improved Ed Hrivnak
who carries the baggage of war.
But it makes me realize
how valuable life is,
how little time
we actually have here,
and how it can be taken
from you in seconds.
-"But I am coming home.
Chuck isn't, Leon's dead.
How many guys
have been killed in wars?
How many not born
because they were killed?
[sighs deeply]
See you soon,
see you soon, see you soon.
Al."
[water rushing softly]
[crowd cheering faintly]
-[Annette] While troops
from the World Wars
were welcomed home to
the United States with kisses,
congratulations, and
cheers from joyful mobs,
the service members
returning from Vietnam
were often ostracized
and even scorned.
Because of this ill treatment,
many Vietnam veterans
made a point decades later
to ensure that those returning
from Iraq or Afghanistan
were treated differently.
-"After months of
extending our stay in Iraq,
our unit was finally
going home.
36 hours after
our scheduled arrival,
we landed in Bangor, Maine.
It was three AM, we were tired,
hungry, frustrated, and angry.
As I walked off the plane,
I was taken aback.
In the small, dimly-lit airport,
a group of elderly veterans
were there waiting for us."
-Welcome to Maine. Welcome back.
-[veteran] Thank you, welcome
to Maine, welcome home.
-"Lined up one by one
to shake our hands,
some were standing, others
were confined to wheelchairs,
and all of them
wore their uniform hats.
Their now feeble right arms
stiffened in salutes.
As I made my way
through the line,
each man thanking me
for my service,
I choked back tears.
Here we were, returning
from one year in Iraq
where we had
portable DVD players,
three square meals, and phones,
being honored by men who
crawled through mud for years
with little more than
an occasional letter from home.
A few of them
appeared to be veterans
from the war in Vietnam,
and I couldn't help but
to think how they were treated
when they came back to the US.
And yet, there they were
to support us.
These soldiers, many of whom
had lost limbs and comrades,
shook our hands proudly
as if our service could
somehow rival their own.
So we later learned
that this VFW group
had waited for more than
a day in the airport
for our arrival.
Looking back
on my year in Iraq,
I can honestly say
that my perception of
the experience was changed,
not so much by the soldiers
with whom I served,
though I consider
them my saving grace,
but by the soldiers
who welcomed us home.
For it is those men
who reminded me
what serving my country
is really about.
Sincerely,
Mike Thomas."
[soft piano music]
-[Annette] At the end
of the Second World War,
less than three months after
the Japanese surrender,
Army Sergeant Richard Leonard
wrote to a friend
back in the States
from a small city
in southwestern Japan.
-"Dear Arlene,
greetings from Kure.
The Japanese are being
as polite as they can
and treating us like kings
and you just can't hate
them for hate's sake,
I don't think I've been
taken in too easily.
I'm pretty skeptical by nature.
But who am I supposed to hate?
Can I hate the old man who
took us to his home for dinner
and made us accept his
family heirlooms for souvenirs?
Or the little girl,
just four years old,
who ran up to me and gave me her
one and only doll for a present?
My answer is that I can't."
-[Andrew]
But I think these letters,
as fragile and as
delicate as they are,
are in some ways
the most enduring tribute
to those who serve.
They capture history,
they humanize our troops
and their loved ones,
they help us to understand
their sacrifices.
I think they're cathartic
for the letter writers.
-"This may all be a big show
of phony hospitality,
but I don't believe they could
fake the basic emotions
with such perfection.
I could be awfully wrong,
but I have tremendous confidence
in the common man
of any country."
-They truly have the ability
to bring us together.
That to me is hope
in even the most divisive times.
-"It would've been very easy
for me to hate them blindly.
I hated their guts when they
killed my brother a year ago.
But hate only
leads to more hate,
and it's only if
we can get together,
work and live together,
that there's any possibility
for a better tomorrow."
[soft poignant piano music]
[music continues]
[soft piano music]
[music continues]