March 30, 2014 Letter to Lydia
I am working on a story set during the time of WWII.
The following is a letter written home by a soldier to his young wife.
How could the rhythm, wording, or dramatic appeal of the page be improved?
My dearest Lydia,
It is cold and rainy here, a day not unlike the fifty or so which have preceded it. The few local people to whom I have spoken do call the season summer but the month is unlike any we have at home. As for the accommodations, I store myself and my things in a muddy trench called a foxhole and with the wetness of the weather the feel and smell of my woolen clothing is nothing less than repulsive. I detest approaching the other men as they smell worse than I.
Shots are fired for most of the day in tiny raids that do nothing but irritate our own and the enemy's soldiers. As long as we stay down we seem to be safe. But two days ago I saw a fellow like myself stand just a few feet away. He may have been stretching from the tension his muscles felt. He shook as the small red hole registered itself on his forehead and stood for several minutes before he pitched backward into a pool of mud and blood.
The tanks are the worst of it with their rumble felt deep into the earth and up through my very bones. I can never tell if they are near or far or even from which direction they come. I've seen them descend on a camp, belching streams of fire and burning everything in their paths. Each day we bury their dead as the cold is not sufficient to slow the decay for more than a few hours.
Beyond the awful monotony of it, one day simply follows another and there is little I want to say about our lives here. The films we saw back home showed a kinder more jovial war where solders joked and sometimes played among themselves. If there are men here doing that, they are in places I can only dream about.
I pray that someday I will be home again and we can make the life we both dreamed about.
