Dear Soldier

Cathy, I am the “Dear Soldier”, that you wrote to while I was fighting in Vietnam. I have attached a copy of the letter you wrote. I hope you remember writing it, but maybe not. You were just a young schoolgirl when you wrote your letter to a “Dear Soldier”. So, I will refresh your memory. You said, at the end of your letter, “I am going to ask you one question, please write back”. Well, I am writing back. I am just a little late. Fifty-four years late, to be exact. War, for whatever reason, just has a way of taking its toll, and sometimes, it takes a while to work things out before you can write back and express your true thoughts to a young schoolgirl, like you. It is important for me to tell you about receiving your letter and what it meant to me. I am hoping those fifty-four years, between your letter and mine, have been good to you, and everyone you love, just as mine have been good to me, and all the ones that I love. I want to share a little about my life in 1967, I want you to realize how important and what it meant to receive your schoolgirl letter, on Christmas Day, addressed to a “Dear Soldier.” Your letter contained everything important. It was a letter written on the type of paper I had used in grade school and it so reminded me of my childhood and my family when I was reading it by candlelight on Christmas night.