Letter Home

Dearest Martha,
I’m writing this from the front lines. I hope you’re doing well, I hope little Jim is well too. I gotta tell you, I’d much rather be there then sitting out here. Remember Ray? Say hi to his mom at the funeral for me, okay? Fuck, this isn’t easy baby. I watched him take one right in the throat, ya know? I mean they give us these helmets and what good do they do when you’re taking shots right to the throat?

Sorry, I don’t mean to lay all this on you baby. You just take care of our boy and know that I’m still alive. I think of you out here and it tells me I need to stay alive. Like last week, when we had to charge into an enforced bunker. The grenade guys had tried to lay the bad guys low and no dice. Heavy Joe had to lay down fire and get us up to the bunker. We still lost seven good guys on the push. When it came down to it, it was me in there with a knife and… well I’m here and they ain’t, ya know? And I just kept thinking: I wonder if this guy’s got a Martha, or whatever they call their women….  I wonder if he’s got one waiting for him back at home. I guess he could, but that doesn’t mean that his Martha deserves her Ed more than mine does. I ain’t saying I’m happy with what I had to do in there, baby, but when this is over I want to come back home to you.

Thinking about your arms around me is the only thing keeping me going out here. I want you to promise me something. I mean, I can’t hear you but just speak it up to God and He’ll hear you.  When I get home, I’m gonna cry. I’ve seen so many people die out here and I’ve known a lot of ’em and I’ve killed a lot of ’em. I mean, there’s so much death. So much killing and brutality that it gets hard to keep it in. But Sarge, well he’s not about to let us just start blubberin’ on the field. Shit like that just gets more people killed. So just promise me you’ll be waiting there at the airport when they ship me back with your big open arms and you’re gonna hug me. And I’ll hug the boy and I’ll send him away and I’m gonna cry on you Martha. When I’m done, I’ll be your man, I’ll be your Ed again. I’ll keep you safe and I’ll be as strong as I know I can be for the rest of my days. But for just a little bit, when I get home, I’m gonna cry.

Sorry, I don’t mean to bring you down baby, but like I said- thinking about you is the only thing that keeps me sane out here. Things aren’t all bad. Last night was Johnson’s birthday. We’d secured about a forty kilometer section of guardable cliff side and decided that it was safe to have a fire. Sarge broke out a big knife and some field rations and we split ’em up and just pretended we were eatin’ a big cake. One of the guys had a couple of sugar cubes he’d been storing away and he let us put ’em on the rations so it’d taste a little more like cake. We all sang “Happy Birthday” to him. We started out trying to be quiet, but by the end we were all so happy to just be celebrating life that we were belting out the words at the top of our lungs. Don’t worry, nobody found us. And Johnson’s here with me at the front lines and says he’s looking forward to another birthday in another 300 days or so. I hope he gets to it, I really do.

Look baby, it sounds like they’re readying another cannonade, and I think the sarge is about to send us up at a few of the pillboxes they’ve got. I’m gonna go ahead and wrap this up. I’ll make sure it goes out at the next post. I’m in good health, I just miss you like nothing else I miss about home. When I get back there I’m going to hold you, and I’m going to hold Little Jim and we’ll all go out for the biggest steaks you’ve ever seen. I’ll wear the cleanest suit you’ll ever see and when we get home I’ll take it off real slow and I’ll make love to you like it was our honeymoon again.

You’re everything to me and my world keeps revolving because I know you’re in it.

I love you,
Ed.