June 9, 1944.
Dear Maggie
Last night was the scariest night of

my

life. I can’t believe I’m alive.
Jumping out of the plane into the fire

of

the Germans was the hardest thing I’ve

ever

done. Some how the company missed our drop zone, therefore most of us were scattered and left alone until we could regroup. The first guy I ran into was from Dog company, Pvt. Lee Thompson. He was 19 years old, just barely old enough to serve. Lee and I ended up traveling together until we found more of Alpha company.
It was such a relief to some of my company with me, once we regrouped we started pushing forward through the french country side. We stumbled across a group of nazi soldiers on there way to camp. It was my first encounter with germans, My heart started racing, I organized my company gave them directions and waited for the enemy to walk into our trap. Seconds later, I gave the directions to open fire. pow-pow-pow-pow the machine guns just rang, casings flying on the ground, the cries from the nazi soldiers. My men didn’t stop until there was no more germans breathing. I stood up check to see if my men were okay, then creeped over to the enemy. 1..2..3...12, my 6 men verse 12 germans. I’ve never seen a dead body before, laying there lifeless, its hard to understand why we must do this. I gathered my guys, showed them the way we were headed on the map, and we

carried on. We needed to get to headquarters and regroup this the rest of the companies. It was dark but the moon light helped us find our way. I couldn’t help myself but think of how beautiful this french country side is and how nice it would be to take in on a warm summers day. We walked and walked, many miles and little smiles, stopping every now and then to check where we are, and to listen up if I heard or saw something move. Couple hours later the sun rose, we were all tired and sore but we had to keep moving forward, I saw little barn through the forest and thought we could rest up for a while. As we approached the barn I got a weird feeling, I walked with my gun drawn and eyes wide open. We came upon the barn, checking the inside for enemy. It was all clear. I walked around back only to