28 May May 28, 1945

Letter
from: Private George W. Shonkwiler
to: Mrs. Alice Shonkwiler
Compaigne, France,
28th of May, 1945, Monday, 9.30 p.m.
Noteworthy: discussion of being at the front.

Dear my darling Alice and Ronnie,

hardly know how to start this letter.
I feel so low that I think I could go jump in the lake. Only there is no lake. But we do have a river running through town.  Guess that would do. I really don’t have any reason for feeling so low. I received a very nice package from you today.  The one with the shaving cream, toothpaste, tea bags, cocoa, and two boxes of candy all in very good condition, and I thank you very much.  I am able to get my favorite shaving cream and toothpaste now as with what you sent me. I hope I have plenty to last me until I get home. I do have a splitting headache and just a general, very tired feeling.  I don’t know what’s causing the headache, but the tired feeling is caused by being just that. Not especially from hard work or anything I’ve been doing, but just from being too old, I guess for army life  They say one is only so old as he feels, well, I feel 90. When and if I ever get home and out of the army, I think all I want to do,

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for I don’t know how long, is to pack you and Ronnie up and go someplace for a very long, quiet, peaceful rest. No responsibility, nothing to worry about, and no special time I have to get up, eat, chow, do this and do that army style.  Then I guess I’m just lonesome. Not just for you and Ronnie, but for other things.  There seems to be no one here that I especially care for.  Very few of these boys have ever seen combat. They don’t seem to know what the score is.  I’ve heard men on the line say they would give anything just to be back here for a week or two, just to get away from the hell up there.  These men here think this is rough, working about two hours out of the eight they put in, have to eat hot chow every day with occasionally some heated C rations or dehydrated food thrown in, plenty of entertainment, money, and places to spend it. Hell, we don’t know what war is back here.  All these fellows think about is how I’m going to cut my buddy’s throat just enough to beat him out of that extra stripe on his sleeve.  When they get packages from home, they dish out maybe one small portion of it to their roommates,

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and the rest is black marketed to the French.  Hell, I’m even getting so I do it myself.  Sometimes I wish as long as I have to be in the army that I was back up there with the boys.  At least there you know that the guy on each side of you is going to do all he can to protect you because he knows you are doing the same for him. Everyone shares everything and the smallest luxuries, no matter how small, are really appreciated and the Sergeant has the hardest job. Here they have the easiest and the more stripes they acquire, the easier it gets and the less they do with a few exceptions.  Up there no one wants his job because it takes a really tough man to do the job right. And he does it right or no one lives.  Men up there would give their right arm to get an assignment like mine they think. I got a letter from my old squad leader a couple days ago. After I was injured they held <? srar> <? lantern> for a few days, then pulled out and moved up to the bridge, from there in Holland and across the Rhine River and again into Germany and playing a big part in

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closing the <? Ahur> gap.  Now yes now they are on their way back to the states on short furlong and then another long trip to possibly death

for many of them.  The law of averages say you don’t dodge them all. Some get it sooner than others.  Well the others if they stay in there long enough get it too no matter how good they are.  Shrapnel plays no
favorites if you are in the wrong place at the right time it’s just too bad.  And we sit back here in what is luxury for an infantry man and <? chaplain>.  No I can’t seem to make any friends with many of the boys here, I don’t know why.

<? Goin> the damn frogs (French) many of them don’t appreciate what we have done for them. Only today I handled some correspondence concerning a man deceased.  They pulled him out of the Oise River a couple of days ago. I don’t think he jumped in either. Because he is not the first such case.  It’s a funny world I can tell you.  Maybe we’d all have been better off if we had let the Germans keep Europe.  A lot of these French seem to have gotten along

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pretty well under their control. well a few of them anyway.  The trouble is one never knows exactly how few or how many.

I saw a picture tonite that hasn’t helped any either, "Winged Victory". The more war pictures I see the less I ever want to see another. This one was pretty rough and no doubt very true.  In fact I know much of it is true.

Well my dears I better bring this morbid letter to a close.  I’m very tired and sleepy.  There is a nice quiet rain outside. The kind I like to sleep and sleep in when I’m home in a nice soft warm bed with my best gal helping me stay warm and with Ronnie within arms length beside us. Will that day ever come again?  It seems very far off tonight I’m sorry to say.

I’m enclosing a small rosebud.  We have lots of them all over this part of town. They really are quite nice. This one came from just off our front porch.  Well my love my dears and wish a little harder for me to come home soon.

I love you my dear and miss you both very very much,
Daddy