WAR LETTERS

PRAISE FOR ANDREW CARROLL’S WAR LETTERS

“Andrew Carroll has given America a priceless treasure. These letters are intimate, deeply personal portraits of the courage, sacrifice, and sense of duty that made this country.”

—Tom Brokaw

“These war letters are more deeply moving, more revelatory, and more powerful than any dispatch from the front. It’s the truly felt history of what war is all about.”

—Studs Terkel

“In the sweep of history, the experience of the lone soldier is often lost, but in this breathtaking collection the individual voices of the men and women who have served this nation come to life with a power and an eloquence that is both gripping and unforgettable. I can think of no better way to understand the horrors of war than to read the words of those who have been caught in its grasp, and these extraordinary letters offer some of the most dramatic eyewitness accounts of war imaginable.”

“Andrew Carroll has assembled a collection of previously unpublished letters that run the gamut of wartime emotion…. An excellent compilation that I enjoyed reading very much—and believe you will, too.”

—Stephen E. Ambrose

“It was a letter that moved me to write Flags of Our Fathers. A letter my dad wrote four days after he helped raise the flag on Iwo Jima. My father honored his country. And Andrew Carroll honors us all with his gift to the nation of the superb War Letters.”

—John Glenn

“[T]he power of these voices from various fronts … is undeniable, and the sentiments and observations they record have a compelling immediacy.”

—James Bradley, son of flag-raiser Doc Bradley

“This wonderful collection of war correspondence is … a treasure…. For scholars, a wealth of primary-source material is provided here. General readers will find it an informative and deeply moving reading experience.”

—Publishers Weekly

—Booklist

WAR LETTERS

Letter by Pvt. John P. McGrath, writing from Anzio, Italy, on April 25, 1944, to his high school friend Dick Treanor. A bullet ripped through the unmailed letter, which McGrath was carrying in his backpack. McGrath himself was unharmed.

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First Scribner trade paperback edition 2005

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Text set in Bembo

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2001020574

ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-1006-9
ISBN-10: 0-7434-1006-8
eISBN: 978-1-439-10731-7

Permissions appear on page 499.

All of the author’s earnings, minus limited expenses incurred in the preparation and support of the book, will be donated to nonprofit organizations, memorials, and institutions, particularly those working to honor and remember the men and women who have served this nation in wartime.