POST WAR RECOVERY

Dear Hem,

As you share in your letter to Bill Horne, dated December 13, 1918, "And so I'm coming home and start the battle for buns or the skirmish for stew or the tussle for turnovers as soon as I can." You are back stateside and ready to hit the bricks and make up for lost time in your writing and reporting. This is good news.

My heart goes out to you, dear friend, as you are "homesick" for Italy now and yearning to get back to the lady you love, "Don't for the Lord's sake come to this country as long as you can help it. That is from one who knoweth. I'm patriotic and willing to die for this great and glorious nation. But I hate like the deuce to live in it." This you wrote in your letter to Jim Gamble, dated March 3, 1919.

It must be quiet a change to be on the speaking circuit sharing your stories of the war. From what you share, I get that you are not comfortable with the way those around you perceive you, "They've tried to make a hero out of me here. But you know and I know that all the real heroes are dead. If I had been a really game guy I would have gotten myself killed off." 

Dear Hem, your guilt about surviving the war and your sense of not being worthy having been rejected during the draft, and having to go as a part of the Red Cross has you feeling like an impostor compared to the "real" soldiers who fought, were wounded, and who died. That sense of being an impostor will follow you and goad you throughout your life. 

You returned home sooner than you wanted to only to find that you needn't have, "Coming home with high resolves to start in at once on the battle for buns and expecting to find all finances very low I'm greeted with this from the Dad, 'Never better. Everything going great. Why didn't you ask me for some kale and stay over if you wanted to!' That was the last straw. I had everything sized up wrong."

This isn't the homecoming you had expected or dreamed of, and it marks the beginning of a really difficult time for you. Hem, I wouldn't have wished this on you for anything. I had hoped you'd get back to feeling good and feeling good about yourself and your life, but that's not the way it is, and that's not to be.

Hem, sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder, and sometimes not. I'm afraid that Ag may not be weathering your separation well. You write in your letter to Bill Horne dated March 5, 1919, "(My) Ag does not know when she is coming home. She doesn't want to come home at all. I can't blame her cause I didn't either. But either one has to cross the ocean. I can't cross and have anything when I hit the other side. So I guess it will end in the little C. around the C." You go on to further share, "I'm still as much in love as ever Bill. Hope Ag stays that way. 'Cause if she shouldn't life wouldn't be worth living."

I hope it works out for you and Ag as I'd hate to see heartbreak added to your burden. 

Sending you hugs and best wishes.

Your friend,
Betsy