An excerpt from Letters from the Front, 1898-1945
Voices of the Wisconsin Past
Edited by Michael E. Stevens
Peter J. Pappas was born in La Crosse in 1917 and attended La Crosse State Teachers College and University of Wisconsin Law School, where he was enrolled at the start of the war. In July, 1942, he was drafted and became an intelligence and supply officer with an antiaircraft battalion, serving in the invasions of New Britain, Hollandia, Leyte, and Luzon. Captain Pappas returned to the United States in December, 1945, and received his discharge in March, 1946. He finished his law degree at the University of Wisconsin and then received a master's degree in law from Harvard University. Pappas currently is a circuit court judge, a position he has held since 1969. His letters are to his former teacher, Myrtle Trowbridge.
New Guinea
December 26, 1943
Dear Miss Trowbridge,
. . . The army is giving me an unrivaled education of travel; both coasts of the U.S.; Australia, New Guinea and a few more places in the future. All of us are learning how the other fellow lives – and we will know of life beyond our own group of states. I fervently hope our lesson is a lasting one for there is so much to be done after the war and we will need all our wisdom and strength to meet the challenge to make this a decent world. At last we realize how fine a way of life we've had and how poor the rest of the world is – but with the material things go the spiritual forces which will breathe hope into the world.
I see I should have planned for a longer letter.
Eve Currie writes in "Journey Among Warriors" that the other nations are fighting for the bright future while the American soldier, realizing how good his life has been, wants merely to return to his old way of life. Like any generalization it overlooks those painful exceptions; yet it contains much truth. On the whole our plane of living has been very high and it must be extended because a good life means much for a peaceful world. Still, we have much to take care of in our own backyard; poverty is not unknown; many are undernourished; there is much to be done in public health; education; housing and many other fields.
There are too many signs of intolerance and interest oppression – education still has much to accomplish. So, it appears that spiritual forces must walk hand in hand with material blessings.
There are favorable signs that the people of the U.S. are looking to activity in the sphere of world politics – a good omen but I wonder if it was not also true during the last war that there was much similar activity; many committees and numerous articles. Yet the results were lacking of any such great ideas. I still believe the mass of voters exercise the greatest of powers and usually are quite intelligent. True, we blunder but the benefits of democracy far overweigh the shortcomings.
We have spent many hours talking of these problems and altho we agree on the objective to be reached, i.e. a world at peace and U.S. international participation we do not agree on the means – and that will be a pressing problem.
Yet our pressing and immediate problem is to win this war and then to meet the next problems. But we can not help but think of what is to come.
One hears much of any entanglement and red-tape but it goes its way and somehow manages to get things done – and I have found it takes good care of us. Under our present conditions I think we are well off – and altho our comforts are few we don't lack for the necessities – and life does become one of simple things. I never dreamt I could do things that I now accept as commonplace – and yet when I return I'll lose no time surrounding myself with the comforts of old.
War is a matter of much training; constant repetition of fundamentals and a lot of hot, dirty work. There is no glamour in it. . . .
Sincerely,
Peter
This excerpt was taken from Letters from the Front, the first volume in the Voices of the Wisconsin Past series. [View another excerpt.]
The Office of School Services has created a supplemental Teacher's Companion to Letters from the Front, 1898-1945, containing lesson plans and a bibliography..
The Voices of the Wisconsin Past series continues with Remembering the Holocaust, also edited by Michael E. Stevens (1997).
Letters from the Front, 1898-1945
Edited by Michael E. Stevens
1992 187 pp 45 b/w photographs 6" x 9"
ISBN 0-87020-268-5 Paperback $12.95
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