This video was released on September 29, 2014. Here’s
the original write-up:
“We as civilians—who elect certain leaders and rally behind a
war—have an obligation to understand what we’re asking [the troops
to give up] and I hope that these letters do that,” says Andrew
Carroll, a Washington, D.C., based historian. Carroll has devoted
the past 16 years to collecting and preserving war correspondences
throughout American history.
These letters provide an intimate look into the
experiences of the men and women who have fought America’s
wars. “It’s not the president or general who’s far-removed
from the battlefield, it’s the individual who’s right there in the
trenches or in the foxholes, that’s what brings war to life,” says
Carroll.He hopes that these letters will humanize the men and
women in uniform so that “[Americans] no longer see them as just
soldiers, airman, marines, or sailors, but as somebody’s spouse or
child or parent or best friend.”
His collection, which now contains over 100,000 letters ranging
from the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror, was recently
donated to Chapman University where it will be digitized and made
available to the public. Chapman has incorporated the letters into
their educational studies and aims to be the nation’s largest
and most preeminent archive of personal wartime correspondences.
Carroll says being a privately funded project has helped make the
experience more personal for him and for the people sending in the
letters.
“They aren’t sending in letters to some government bureaucracy.
They’re sending it to people who respond to them personally and who
read every letter. It’s very meaningful to us,” says the
historian.
The vast collection includes a letter from a young GI in Munich
who, using Hitler’s golden embossed stationary, wrote to his
parents about the horrors of Dachau he had witnessed the day
before. Another one is from a Revolutionary War soldier to his
friend, explaining the reasons why General Washington’s army must
fight for freedom. And another one was written from a young marine
in Iraq to his mom right before he was killed, thanking her for
raising him to be the man he was. The collection contains thousands
of these personal stories which serve as a somber reminder of the
horrors that war can bring to individuals and their
families.
“I think the more we have a sense that these are actual
individuals that we’re sending off to fight, I think it’s better
for the entire country, I think it’s better for the military, it’s
better for all of us,” says Carroll.
About 3 minutes.
Produced by Amanda Winkler. Camera by Winkler, Joshua Swain, and
Ford Fischer.
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