Wallace's Tent on Salisbury Plain

Wallace's Tent on Salisbury Plain
Writing a letter with candle on clipboard, see Oct. 16 letter

Tuesday, January 23, 2024

April 8, 1945 Sunday

Hosp. France

Good evening, Honey,

Guess what happened today! It is with humble pride and genuine emotion that I report – your husband took his first step this afternoon. After struggling to a shaky standing position propped against his bed, he took a deep breath and wove an unsteady course across the ward to the bed of Captain Dodson. Upon arriving to the safety of that spot, his first words were “Keeriste, what a sensation.”

But to explain this radical and unprecedented flight [was] without the aid of crutches. It took an unusual set of circumstances to bring it about. First was the wager, then the doctor, then the 20 marks. Early this morning, after writing a letter to the folks, I made a decision that I must have my stitches removed today. To show I was serious, I bet 20 marks with Capt. Dodson that I would have them taken out today. So when the doctor came around I did everything but stand on my hands to demonstrate that the stitches were ready to be pulled. I didn’t think that standing on my hands would help any, you see, since the trouble is all in my leg. 

He took them out, fast and painlessly. He is an expert on surgery and things like that.

Finally, freed from the restraining stitches, I decided to collect my 20 marks on the spot. It was more to “accentuate the positive” recovery to still-stitched-up Dodson than anything else. So off I took on my own two feet and collected. You will see that it is an old 1914 mark, absolutely worthless. But it was a sweet victory. Now I am due for clothes, physio-therapy, and increased mobility.

The only other event today worth mentioning was the chicken we had for supper. I had about half a chicken on my tray – neck, breast, and wing. Very meaty and tasty.

Also I want to mention again that I am very happy to have the best wife in the world. There are those who have wives of their own who dispute that, but I tell them that I have lived with you, so I know. I say it jokingly but secretly I know it is actually true. Makes me feel contented and hopelessly superior to the ordinary mortals who have just ordinary wives. Over here, you know, everybody envies a married man, and all wish so much they had been married before they came. We showed them! 

All my love, 

Wallace.

Monday, November 20, 2023

April 7, 1945 Saturday

Hosp. – France

Hello, Hon,

Big day today! In addition to the usual routine, I snuck (passed [sic] tense of sneak, of course) out to the Red Cross this afternoon and saw a movie. It took loads of cooperation from ambulatory patients, both in planning an alibi and in executing the project. They volunteered enthusiastically and it was pulled off without a hitch. I’d like to tell you the name of the show, but I never knew. It was a sentimental little musical. Not much good, but it was good enough to make me miss you like everything and draw analogies between us and the hero and heroine. Seems as tho every movie does that to me, and makes me wish our happy ending would hurry. Is it a good thing I don’t see many movies like that? I don’t know. They make me yearn for you and miss you very sharply – but it isn’t good to get too sentimental in a situation like this. You feel better just thinking logically. First Lieutenants get all gummed up like that.

Wrote a letter to Laura today which should reach her about her birthday. I couldn’t get to a P.X. to buy her a gift. If you have time, it would be nice to send her something from “us.”

Sometime in his career every G.I. sends home to his sweetheart a plan for their dream home. It is a warming thing to do. It is possible that, being a teacher’s family, our home will not be permanently located very soon, so we might not get a chance to build a dream home early in our career. Having ideas tho makes it easier to approximate what we want, and who knows when we might actually be in a spot to build a home of our own? The funniest things can happen to people!

So, with that much introduction, let me present:

Preliminary Thoughts on Dream Home*

by RUSSELL

*Heavy debts go to several G.I. Dream Home ideas.


Fig. 1 – ground floor




That living room is the “piece de resistance.” The fireplace is a big one, and the steps down would be nice. The B[reakfast] nook would work, don’t you think? I don’t know whether the library is well placed or not. The glass porch would go good, and windows are sprinkled around where needed. 


Fig. 2 – second floor




This is a balcony that overlooks the living room, making it a real high room.

The glass porch is on the second floor, also, one above the other – this may be screened in up here. 

The study room is to work in when too much is going on in the library.

The absence of a bath room reflects my travels in France. Maybe the small bedroom would be better as a bath room.

I thought about a patio, but that would involve a completely different style house. I don’t know what style this house is. Could look pretty modern from the outside.

There is a “big picture,” Hon; furniture and other details will have to be worked out by better brains than mine. That is, if any better brains were interested in paying attention to it.

I love you from top to toe, Hon, and am much more interested in having one room and you than any mansion. A mansion added would be only a minor improvement.

All my love, 


Wallace.

Sunday, September 10, 2023

April 6, 1945 Friday

France – Hosp. 

Evening, my Honey,

Today coasted along following the same routine I told you about in yesterday’s letter. I told the doctor it was time to take the stitches out but he didn’t agree with me. Guess he hasn’t had too much training. No, actually he is about the best doctor I have been under, and everyone has all the confidence in the world in him. He’s a big man, not fat, but big. He has a mild, intelligent face and a manner that inspires faith in him without him saying very much. 

This afternoon I started another letter to you, trying to tell you about some of the little incidents that have happened that I never have written you about. I suppose it is the “veteran” story-telling that we all catch in time. I can see why “veterans” get that way now. Some of the experiences are extremely impressive and you have a big urge to get some of the off your chest. A good many of them feel that what has happened to them just must be more unusual than anything that has happened to anybody. That isn’t so. All of them have had very similar experiences – at least the tankers and infantrymen, and they are the ones I’m talking about. That doesn’t make each one’s experience have any less effect on him as an individual, tho. 

I am still trying to escape this form of “veteran-itis,” because it is a completely useless thing. The vet is carried away by his own story because he lived it, but to others it’s just another monotonous combat experience. Of course, they all meet some of those things you don’t want to talk about, but those are the episodes that are soon repressed almost completely out of memory. Funny that way, the worst things are forgotten; from conscious memory, that is. They pop up in bad dreams now and then. Then you wake up and start going to sleep all over again. 

I’m counting on you, you know, to “rehabilitate” my conversation in that respect. I want to tell you all there is to tell, but just you, Hon. There is good reason for sharing these things with you and I want to very much. Just be sure to stop me after I’ve been around the whole story a couple of times. I know I’ve mentioned this before but I have to keep re-deciding it each time I take a time-out.

Seems as tho I ask you to do, or prepare to do something for me in each letter I write. I don’t mean to ask for too much, Marjorie Hon, but you are a pretty important person to me, and the only one I can count on for a lot of things. I wasn’t raised to be a soldier. You are just about the only part of my life that isn’t G.I. That just makes me love you more, and want to do things for you. I wish I could do something right now to start repaying you, for just being there you are doing more for me than you could guess, dearest. Remember our Durham song “You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To” – that goes now much deeper than I ever thought it would. You are all I want to come home to.

Always all yours,

Wallace. 

Friday, September 8, 2023

April 5, 1945 Thursday

France

Dearest Marjorie,

The idea came to me that it would be possible to keep a diary while I am in the hospital. But, on the other hand, it would be a pretty colorless affair. I have done less in the last week and a half than I have ever done in that length of time in my life. The other hospital was a beehive of activity compared to this. Probably it isn’t the hospital, but my position as a bed patient that makes the difference. Anyway, even if I do nothing worth writing about, I still have the urge to keep a diary. It’s hard to figure out just why. The books say it is an adolescent characteristic, but as far as I can see, all I have left of adolescence is an occasional pimple. And I most likely wouldn’t have those if I washed my face as I should! I think the diary urge is there because I like to feel as tho I knew what I am doing, and writing things down forces you to think more clearly. Another good reason is that my memory for times and places is always in a comfortable fog, but if there is a place for me to look up details of memories that doesn’t bother me. 

In a place where I have trouble holding on to my pay data card, it is easy to see how long I could retain a real diary. So for the time that I am here, I will incorporate a diary with my letters to you. That’s no great innovation. My letters usually amount to that anyway. But I’ll be a little more conscientious about it now. 

By the way, are you keeping a diary now? If you are, will you put an entry here and there about what I am doing? Then I can “catch me up” when I can keep a diary again. Let’s see Sept-Nov = Trip over and Tidworth; Nov = Normandy – St. Mards; Dec = Baccarat – Urbach; Jan = Mulcey – Herrlisheim – Hosp.; Feb = Hosp. – Cites des Charbonnages; March = Trier – Speyer – Hosp.

Today I rolled over to eat breakfast at about 8 o’clock. The reason I got up so early was that the tray was shoved under my nose and I had no alternative. After breakfast I lay back, fatigued, smoking a resuscitating Chesterfield. Hardly had I finished the second one when the wash pan was brought around and I gingerly shaved. After that effort I did snatch an hour or two of rest and brilliant conversation. Then the mail clerk brought the mail – not incoming, that’s not for me, but mail to censor. My share comes to about 20 letters per day, and usually I finish that before the doctor makes his rounds. Today I had a few left when he came, but he only asked me if I had any complaints. I said no, and he passed on. Tomorrow I’ll see if he will take out the stitches.

I read for the rest of the morning from “Thunder Mountain.” This was interrupted by dinner – brought on a tray of course. After the meal, more conversation, and finally the rest of “Thunder Mountain.”

That about finished my activities, except for writing to you. Supper came and interrupted me for awhile. Then a surprisingly heated but intelligent conference on international organization was held spontaneously in the ward. 

The lights went out at 10 o’clock, but we talked on ‘til around 11. Then I said a few words to you and went to sleep.

That’s my day – and they are all alike. Pretty strenuous, but I bear up under it all.

Bye now, Hon; I love you every minute.

All yours,

Wallace.

Sunday, September 3, 2023

April 4, 1945 Wednesday

Dearest Honey,

How is my Bunny tonite? All nice? I bet so, how could you be anything else? This is your wandering husband, who wanders and wonders just how long it will be before he can see how nice you are again. ‘Course I know all the time, but each time I hear from you or see you I am surprized just how nice you are. Haven’t done either for some time now, so I like to think of the surprize I have in store for me one of these days.

I guess this paper about completes the rainbow for me in the past few days. The Red Cross gives it out, and altho it is weird, it is all that is to be had.

My adventurous spirit came to the fore today. I was determined to find out a little about where I am. Altho I am still not permitted to ambulate, my leg feels very good. It is not sore now and I can bend my knee quite well. I feel as tho I could walk, but the doctor won’t let me try. So today I defied authority and took off on my crutches. I went all around this floor, and then threw caution to the winds and went down the stairs! There wasn’t anything down there but the first floor, but it gave me a feeling of great accomplishment. This hospital is on the site of an old French army garrison. There isn’t much in one building. The authorities make it difficult for me to spread my wings, by not issuing me even a bath robe while I am a bed patient. I should be able to shake that classification in a day or so now. I imagine they don’t want me walking for fear of breaking the stitches. There aren’t many this time – just a few at each opening.

Today was P.X. day, so I am now supplied with enough candy and cigarettes for a while. I have just finished a full pack of Phillip Morris’ and I found out why most people don’t like them. They give the impression of being very, very dry and after a few they leave a bitter taste in the back of your mouth. I am fairly certain I noticed a real difference in taste – in fact, it was hard for me to smoke the entire pack and I rushed back happily to a Chesterfield.

Today I started a full-sized novel – “Thunder Mountain,” which is a robust, escapist story that holds a lot of interest with its well defined characters.

Will you excuse me, dear, if I close a little early tonite? I started writing late tonite and “lights out” is creeping up on me. As always, you will be the subject of my “dropping off to sleep” thoughts. You seem much closer these days – because I can write more consistently, probably. Remember I always love you more than anyone in all the world, Honey.

All my love,

Wallace.

Thursday, August 31, 2023

April 3, 1945 Tuesday

Dearest Honey, 

I did some interesting reading today. First I finished “Brainstorm” by Carlton Brown (a condensation, of course). That was practically a case history of a recovered insane man. Gave the background and possible causes of the onset, described the depressed phase and went into great detail on the manic phas that forced him into a state hospital. The phases were separated by weeks, so I don’t know whether it was a true manic-depressive case on not. They did not name it, but mentioned cyclothemia a couple of times. This man thought that he was a “jitterbug Christ” and reached the height of his delusion at the World’s Fair. He didn’t have real illusions, but was hyper-sensitive to normal happenings, translating them all in terms of his own dreams. He gave a story of the state of the asylum that didn’t sound too good, and told of his slow, difficult recovery. Have you, by any chance, seen the real book? You’d enjoy it, Hon. 

Then I found an article in a Life magazine about “psychosomatic medicine,” which is simply the study of emotionally caused physical disorders – peptic ulcers, asthma, high blood pressure, etc. It wasn’t too new, but I learned that they use sodium pentathol in the army to study psychiatric cases. That’s the same drug they have used on me frequently as an anesthetic during my various operations. The doctor here said they did use it in different quantities on cases where emotional blocks prevent memory of battle experiences, etc. It makes a rapid psycho-analysis possible by breaking down a patient’s resistance to memory. It does produce a very pleasant, dreamy sleep. I have told you about it more than once, haven’t I? Something like hypnosis, the doctor said. Again I was surprized when it said that 40 to 50% of army disability cases are of “psychosomatic” origin. That is a good new word to express the mind-body relationship that psychologists always plug. 

It seems awfully good to me, Hon, to find even that much new material on psychology. It is easy for me to think in the vocabulary such books use, and it is very interesting. It is easy to drift off into baloney and pseudo-science in that vocabulary, but if you keep yourself in check it is the best method of describing human actions. Psychology is a hard subject to keep solid, but it is a little better than a purely philosophic approach.

Dear, I hope every day that your days are going as smoothly as mine. It is a big relief to me to be able to think about you any time I want to – and that is most of the time. Up front you can only think about home, which is you, for seconds at a time. Then you must force your thoughts back to the situation. Here I think of you and love you very sincerely and very deeply all the time. ‘Nite now, Bunny, sleep good and lean on me if you’d like to – I love you,

Wallace.

Tuesday, August 29, 2023

April 2, 1945 Monday

Hello Honey,

This stationary isn’t very fancy, but you know how things are in this line in the E.T.O. I feel lucky to have anything to write on – my only source of notebooks for official business has been the German army. They have a big supply of very fine quality notebooks. Much better than our own, and each non-com and officer has one or more. Stiff covers, lined, very good deal. 

I seem to be coming out of my lethargy automatically. Spontaneously today I did quite a lot of reading and wrote a letter to the folks. It is rather fun to see just how much you’ll do without forcing yourself at all. It sure has been good just to lay around and have a completely natural rest. Soon I may work up to orientation lectures, who knows?

A new warrant officer moved in to the bed next to mine last night. He had some Belgian francs with him. I have not been in Belgium, Hon, but I begged some of it from him and will send it home to you to add to the pile of things you must have already. By the way, I wonder if you have yet received the box of Paris souvenirs, and also the box of coins, I have sent you. Probably not. I understand it takes quite a few weeks for them to get to the States. To completely jumble the sense of this paragraph, I’ll end it by saying that I have been in Luxembourg, which is a romantic little state.

Now to review my reading for today. It has been weasel-reading, I confess. That is, it was all from a magazine “Omnibook,” which contains condensations of real books. As a rule, I don’t enjoy condensations, and don’t consider them valid or valuable reading. But I did have some fun with them today. I read “China to Me,” by Emily Hahn. She certainly was quite a character. Wrote a book about the Soong sisters, married a Chinaman and had a child by a British officer, only to accept repatriation to the U.S. on the Gripsholm. She was an uninhibited sort, anyway, and a typical international character. No observable moral code, no strong convictions, but brilliant and realistic. Freedom from conventionality was her most admirable quality.

Then I breezed on to “Lost in the Horse Latitudes” by the author of “Low Man on a Totem Pole” [H. Allen Smith]. That brought me a few good laughs. I think the humor suffered from the condensation, tho, because it seemed awfully forced in the version I read. Both Smith and James Thurber write very much in the style of Robert Benchley, but neither one can touch him, in my opinion.

Finally, I found a condensation of “Brainstorm” by Carlton Brown. I have not finished it yet, but it is the most interesting of all. It is the story of a man going insane, and his experiences in recovering. I’ll tell you more about it when I have finished it.

Say, Hon, first you know you’ll be reaching the end of your current activities. Oh, not too soon, but with spring well here, can summer be far behind? You will have your degree, I presume, and school in Westmoreland will be over. What then? We know the hue of my future – O.D. for some time yet, I imagine. So will you forgive me if I think about your future? I like to think about it because the opportunities are unlimited. You can do just about anything you really want to. You might be able to travel some, or study music some more, or even get with that book of yours. Of course, having Grammie to consider might be something of a limiting factor, and also consideration for our bank roll – but as long as it is going the right way I don’t want you to think of that too much. What would you really like to do? That’s what I’d like to have you do, Hon. Even drinking root beer on the Russells’ lawn sounds good to me. Very good, in fact. It’s nearly time to think about getting those battered lawn chairs out. And the croquet set – remember when I hit you in the head with a mallet? One of my romantic memories!! I promise never to do it again, Hon, if you’ll only play with me again. I love you even if I do make such unconscious attempts at manslaughter.

Nite now, my Bunny,

Here’s dreaming of you,

Wallace.