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American Morning

Book Looks At War As Seen through Letters Home

Aired May 28, 2001 - 09:35   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: As the nation remembers its fallen war heroes this weekend, editor Andrew Carroll joins us to share some important and poignant recollections from the men and women who have served their country. They are compiled in "War Letters." It's a new book, and they were written from conflicts ranging from the Civil War to the Persian Gulf War.

Andrew Carroll joins us from New York. Andy, good morning, great to have you with us.

ANDREW CARROLL, AUTHOR, "WAR LETTERS": Thank you very much, good morning.

KAGAN: I saw your event last night on C-SPAN. I said that's the kind of guest we need in the morning on CNN, and here you are, so it's good to have you here.

CARROLL: Thank you.

KAGAN: Explain the gist on this project. You put out the word that you wanted letters for more.

CARROLL: We were very lucky. "Dear Abby" did a column on this project, and it's just to get Americans to save their war letters and she said if you think you have something historically significant, send it to Andrew Carroll at the following address.

We got inundated with 50,000 war letters from all over the country on all different wars. So, we have letters from the American Revolution all the way up to Bosnia. There was no intention to do a book from the beginning. We just wanted to encourage people to save these letters, don't throw them out.

But there were all these incredible eyewitness accounts of Gettysburg and D-Day and the Tet Offensive up to Desert Storm, and it seemed that we could do a book of these, and we're donating all the proceeds to veterans groups. But the book is 200 never-before-seen letters from the Civil War to the present day, and what people have tucked away in their attics, their basements, their closets. I mean, it's just incredible what's out there.

KAGAN: I would think the hardest part of your job, not getting the letters, but how did you go from 50,000 to the 200 that are in this book? How did you do that? Whoops -- well, are you back with us?

CARROLL: I'm here.

KAGAN: OK, let me ask you again. We had a little glitch there. How did you go from the 50,000 letters that you received to the 200 that are in this book?

CARROLL: It was very subjective, but really, I wanted to find the letters that were the most dramatic, the most impassioned; the letters that really gave you a sense of what it's like to be there in the trenches, in the foxholes, and really to give you a glimpse of what war is truly like by the greatest authorities, those who are there, the sailors, the airmen, the Marines, the war nurses.

We have a lot of incredible letters by women who served, and we have a lot of letters by very famous Americans. We have Theodore Roosevelt, Sherman, Patton, Eisenhower, McCarthy, Julia Childs, who served in the OSS, which was the precursor to the CIA, and people sent us these letters they had, and in some cases, the families of these very famous Americans sent us letters and they said, we've never let anyone use these letters before. They've all previously unpublished and they're all war letters.

KAGAN: Let's share some of them. This one from Lieutenant junior grade George Bush -- that would be the elder George Bush -- written on September 16, 1944. He's writing, I imagine, to his parents: "Did I tell you about my goatee? It started off beautifully, but gradually developed into a joke. However, I'm now convinced that I could grow a fairly presentable goatee given plenty of time. My eye has completely healed now. There's no scar, and the only visible sign of the accident is the big bare sport where the eyebrow should be growing. I still think about the accident a good deal. So many things that I could have done come to mind and bother me. It was a terrible thing all right. Getting on to another subject, did you ever see that Oakes girl with the funny nickname? I can't remember it for the life of me. She was my downfall."

Very insightful letter there, talks about an accident. Do you know the accident that he's talking about?

CARROLL: He was about 22 years old. He was shot down over the Pacific after finishing a bombing raid and he was literally fished out of the ocean by a submarine. And so he wrote these letters home from the sub. I actually had a chance to meet him right before the inauguration and I begged him, do you have any photos of you with a goatee, and he just smiled and said, not a chance.

KAGAN: Those do not need to be saved for historical preservation as far as the former president is concerned. I think what strikes me the most about the project, yes, you do have famous people, well-known people like former presidents and Julia Child, as you mentioned. But it's really the everyday, ordinary folks and their letters home and then how you come to find out what happened to them after they wrote this letter that struck me as well. CARROLL: With every letter in the book, we give you an introduction to who the person was, what are the circumstances under which they are writing. So, you have a sense of the duress, that they are literally writing from trenches and foxholes and hospitals, and you get a sense sometimes from the paper, and we have facsimiles in the book. We keep the grammar, the syntax exactly as they wrote it, but when you see the paper, the little tears, the flecks of mud and blood, you get a sense of what the circumstances were like as they were writing these letters.

KAGAN: Let's share one of those everyday kind of guy letters. This one is from Sergeant John Wheeler. He is writing on November 5, 1950, which I would imagine was the Korean conflict?

CARROLL: Yes.

KAGAN: OK, he writes: "Please excuse the long period between letters. I didn't know where they were going to send me when I was discharged from the hospital two weeks ago. I found out that I got hit twice that day. They first was a bullet that went through part of my right temple, through the right ear and out the back of my head, never going all the way into my head, but grazing it, leaving quite a scar and a hole in the ear. Good thing it didn't go all the way in or I would have come home sooner than anticipated in a pine box. The second time with mortar fragments while I was on my way to the aid station."

Tell our audience what happened to Sergeant John Wheeler after he wrote that letter.

CARROLL: What's especially tragic is that despite these massive injuries, he was put back into battle, they had such a shortage of manpower, and he eventually was captured by the Chinese and killed. And that letter was sent in by sister, and what's been most heartbreaking about this project are not just the letters that people have sent us, but the cover letters, the little messages. They will say this is the last letter my brother wrote before he was killed.

So, we're really trying to encourage people to share these letters, let younger generations know what these men and women endured. And we set up a Web site, of course, WarLetters.com. It's just the title of the book, "War Letters," and dot-com, and there are all sorts of information how you can preserve your letters because that's really what we're trying to encourage people to do; not so much to send them to us, and we only ask for photocopies, not originals.

KAGAN: Very good, and what if people still do want to give contributions to your project?

CARROLL: We don't accept money. We're entirely non-profit.

KAGAN: Letters.

CARROLL: Just letters, correct. Our address is on the Web site, WarLetters.com, and information on exactly what we're looking for, but we only need photocopies, not originals. KAGAN: And as you mentioned, all proceeds go to veterans groups. This thing has taken on life of its own. There's an audio book and also a PBS special coming out in the fall, as I understand it.

CARROLL: Exactly, the book, "War Letters," just came out, but there is an audio version and on Veterans Day, November 11th, the PBS documentary will be airing.

KAGAN: Very good, well, Andrew Carroll, it's a huge accomplishment, a great contribution to American history. Thanks for sharing with us and good luck with the project and the book.

CARROLL: Thank you very much.

KAGAN: Once again, the book is called "War Letters," and you can get more information from Carroll's Web site. He mentioned it, but we'll tell you again, WarLetters.com.

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