How do we remember what happened during wartime?
One way is through preserving the letters soldiers wrote home. Andrew Carroll has made it his life鈥檚 mission to retain them. His cousin, James Carroll Jordan, was a pilot in World War II.
Here鈥檚 what one of Jordan鈥檚 letters home :
鈥淚 saw something today that made me realize why we鈥檙e over here fighting this war,鈥� Jordan wrote to his wife, Betty Anne. That day he had been tasked with visiting Buchenwald, the Nazi concentration camp, which had been liberated a few days earlier. 鈥淲hen we first walked in we saw all these creatures that were supposed to be men,鈥� Jordan wrote. 鈥淭hey were dressed in black and white suits, heads shaved and starving to death.鈥� His descriptions of this almost unbelievable scene are vivid and brutal, though he told his wife he had spared her the worst of it. Finally, he wrote, 鈥渙ur time was up, so we boarded our truck and rode home, just thinking.鈥�
As handwritten letters become rarer, how are we preserving wartime correspondence? And what can we learn from these letters?
On this Veteran鈥檚 Day, we talk about those questions and more.
If you have a letter you鈥檇 like to preserve, you can find all the ways to do that
This show was produced by Michelle Harven in partnership with Smithsonian Magazine.
GUESTS
Andrew Carroll, Founding director, Center for American War Letters at Chapman University;
Benjamin Patton, Founder, ;
For more, visit .
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