All Comments on 'Letters From The World'

I must say that I found it extremely interesting how your main character evolved over time during the story. She starts out as very naive, and then thanks to her friend g a i l, becomes pretty worldly in the carnal arts shall we say. Now, aside from that, you show one of the common practices which was the wives staying with the parents, at least initially.. and then moving on to trying to find a place by themselves or perhaps with a friend. This is exactly what happened, and you even showed how she was willing to try to get a better-paying job other than the five and dime, and then ended up at the shoe factory which paid her double. Probably the biggest shock though was the fact that while you cataloged all her internal struggles with her loneliness, her moral debates, interactions with her friend and some others, we really see the woman placed front and center in this, and I find that quite novel... because although you say in your biography that you like to focus on females, their psychology, and effectively their evolution.. we really don't see that as clearly as we do in this account. Now, I can't say that all of her evolution was positive, but you employed her letters as the vehicle to relay his approbation and encouragement of some of her practices. Some of it sounds perfectly normal, with regards to him having girly magazines and even a prominent picture displayed in a photo he sent back to her, as well as them kind of accepting that once he returned, he would engage in some of these newer techniques shall we say that she learned.

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I have to admit that I'm sure you researched this quite well as you normally do, because the etymologies of many of the words that she wonders about may not be impossible to find but I could not find easy access to any of them in terms of strictly United States usage and what year. Therefore this kind of gave you a wide latitude in which to paint this story. For example, I even tried to look up how common it was for servicemen's wives to resort to lesbianism because their husbands were gone during the Vietnam war... and guess what? I found nothing on that, although I did find references to some explanation of homosexuality among service members during Vietnam, things like blue discharges, which were given to such members at times, and other documented accounts of people applying that would fill out question number 11, marking it true that they were homosexual in tendancy. Then a doctor or someone reviewing the file would scratch it out and circle no and basically they ignored any of those marked as yes during the whole time in Vietnam.. although when everybody returned, that's when they got strict about it. Now what I found most fascinating was that as an example, I was super afraid that her husband would get killed and we be reading some account of her crying her eyes out and probably committing suicide. However one thing I could uncover through searching was that although draftees composed 30% of the fatalities, less than 30% of those drafted actually saw combat, and usually any contacts were between only two and three per month. So in some cases even 25% of the infantry never saw any combat at any one time. So actually while certain ways the odds were one in three somebody could die, the reality was very few actually thought, although an interesting statistic is that serious maimings and injuries increased to 300%, which was over what was seen during World War ii.

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I appreciate your careful illustration, by showing the feminine side and this man's fictional wife.. in terms of how she missed him, how she fretted over him being in danger, sharing in some cases juicy gossip as if he were one of the girls to just proclaming her love for him and enunciating all the things she wanted to do with him and to him upon his return. I don't believe anybody would say this did not tug at least a few heartstrings, so I'm certain you've tapped into a powerful set of emotions here that will resonate with many readers that venture into this category. While I personally could care less about the lesbianism, that's simply a personal preference and I was able to largely skip most of that unless I wanted to read it in terms of her psychology and her reactions as to how she processed all these feelings. You had the freedom and you took it, and that is your choice and your privilege with any story. My job is to be fair, and I hope any other commenters will read this.. because I've been reading in the forums where once more commenters are one bombing some stories just for kicks and not leaving anything, or just downing an author just to be tacky. So, I appreciate your efforts, and really enjoy your quality outputs. Although I could have cared less about some of the content, I don't see why this is deserving of anything less than a 5!

LOVED this! I usually don't go to that section, but you write so well, I tried it. THANKS!

I was in Nam at the same time, and thought for sure hubby was going to receive a "dear John" letter. Thank you for not doing that in this wonderful story. I'm real glad Shelly, Gail, Marsha and other wives found ways to get satisfaction, and not find a Jody in their beds. Great story, worthy of more than five stars I'm allowed to give. Semper Fi.

Told from a different perspective than others of yours I have read. Made it a very interesting read and came across as very personal, her loneliness and struggles. Excellent work.

Another wonderful story!

5

I was afraid this would be some man-hating "oh I'm not cheating because it's with a girl" story at best; and a straight up "dear Johhny" cheating at worst. I'm glad that the author came through and instead made it into an interesting story with a main character who actually has morals and values and managed to only do her exploration after she made sure her husband is OK with it. 5 stars.

I knew a couple of guys who went off to 'Nam and left girlfriends and wives behind.

This story is a reminder of those days. Well written, but troubling.

Good story and I'm glad she stayed true (somewhat) to him. 4.5*

I loved the way Shelley progressed from a naïve young woman to a something other worldly. And through it all stayed true to her husband. That’s what makes a good story. A slight misdirection. Am sure the reader thought she was going to the ‘dark side’. I am sure Luke will enjoy the new Shelley.

As usual a great story, although maybe from a single point of view.

5 stars as usual.

Great insights into the frustration of a young woman separated from her man. Nicely done!

Ohhh clif hanger..... Will there be more? I hope so.