Mail Call

Foreword

The US actions during very early days of WWII in the Pacific was more defensive than offensive as were those in the war in Europe. The first reason was the near destruction of the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor by the Japanese, and it took the US some time to recover from that loss. The second reason was President Roosevelt's promise to England to help defeat Nazi Germany first and Japan second.

Two main defensive actions were fought and won in the first six months of the war -- The Battle of the Coral Sea and The Battle of Midway. Those wins along with the efforts of hundreds of men and women to reconstitute the Pacific Fleet paved the way for the first Allied offensive in the Pacific, that being an amphibious attack on the Solomon Islands and specifically the islands of Guadalcanal, Tulagi, and Florida Island. The intent of this operation was to establish a supply base and airfield on Guadalcanal to enable the Allies to capture the major Japanese base on Rabaul. From there, the Allies would "leapfrog" through the islands and eventually attack the Japanese homeland and end the war.

The initial landing on Guadalcanal was made by US Marines on 7 August, 1942. This is the story of one of those marines, Marine Private Mack Donaldson. He was nineteen at the time of the landings.

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Marine Private Mack Donaldson was surprised to hear the sergeant call his name. He couldn't figure out who would be writing to him. Mack's mother and father were both gone, victims of a car accident when he was eighteen, and he had no siblings. His mother had once told him she had a sister who lived in Oregon, but said they hadn't spoken in years. They'd had a falling out of some sort and never got back together, so she probably didn't know he existed.

He'd been on Guadalcanal since the first landings. He'd been scared to death when the ramp dropped into the water and had run as fast as he could for the beach and cover. He was surprised they met little resistance. Within a day, they had taken the beach and the airfield and then started moving supplies inland. The first mail call happened a few days later, and it was at this mail call he walked up and took the letter from Sergeant Miles.

Mack walked back to his position, sat down, and used his bayonet to slit open the envelope.

The letter was typed, something he thought a little odd. He'd seen the letters the other Marines had gotten and they were all hand written. He understood when he read the first paragraph.

July 4, 1942

Dear Private Mack R. Donaldson,

My name is Valerie Wilson and you don't know me. I am sixteen years old and I go to school here in Louisville, Kentucky, the same town you're from. My English teacher said we should write to the men in the service to let them know we support what they are doing. I picked your name from the list she had, and wrote this letter. It is typed because my handwriting is really, really hard to read most of the time. It would not do any good to send you a letter you could not read, now would it?

My teacher said we should not write anything about how America is making things to send you to fight with because spies could read our letters and figure out how to bomb the places so I won't tell you about that. I don't know much about that anyway because I am just in high school. My mother works in one of those factories but she can not tell me what she does there. She said they were sworn to secrecy before they started work and they have posters on the walls to remind them.

I will tell you a few things about me and hope I do not bore you. I like going to the park and hearing the birds sing. I like eating ice cream. My mother says that will make me fat, but so far it has not. I am five feet three inches tall without my shoes on. Mother says a woman never tells anybody how much she weighs, but I will tell you so you can get a better picture of me. I weigh ninety-five pounds. I have brown hair and some people say I am pretty. I would send you an actual picture of me, but my teacher says I should not do that. She said if you were captured (and I pray you never are) the enemy might use my picture to get you to tell them things.

I like listening to music. At school, sometimes we have dances, and I like doing that too. I do not have a boyfriend, so sometimes I have to dance with other girls, but it is still fun. Glen Miller is one of my favorite bands. Do you have a favorite band? If you do, I would like to hear what it is.

Well, since I do not know anything about you except that you are a Marine, I do not know what else to write. If you send me a letter back, please tell me about yourself. My teacher says you can not tell me where you are or what you are doing, but I do not want to hear about that anyway. I just want to be able to tell my friends about a brave Marine I know who is doing everything he can for our country.

Your Friend, I hope,

Valerie Wilson

He smiled at the end, because her signature was hand written in cursive and she'd been right. It was hard to read but he understood because his own handwriting was hard for others to read. Mack re-read the letter and then re-read it again. He had to smile at some of the words. He was just nineteen himself, and remembered girls he'd known in high school. They seemed silly now. They'd been more concerned with how they looked and how many boys they could attract than anything else. Valerie seemed like a nice girl who was trying to support the war effort in the only way she could. That night, Mack got paper, a pen, and an envelope and sat down to return Valerie's letter.

August 10, 1942

Dear Valerie,

I was very happy to get your letter because I don't have anybody to write to or to write to me. I'm writing back because you sound like a really nice girl and I'd like to hear from you again if you can spare the time.

I'm a little older than you are. I'm nineteen. I enlisted in the Marines right after Pearl Harbor because every man who can should fight to protect our country. You told me how big you are, so I'll tell you the same things about me.

I'm a lot bigger than you. I'm six feet one and I weight about a hundred and ninety pounds. I'm probably not that heavy now because it's hot here and I sweat a lot. If I write where I am, the censors will just mark it out so I won't do that. I'll just say it's really hot and there is lots of jungle everywhere.

We don't get much music where I am, but when I was in training, I liked Glen Miller too. I've never danced with a girl, but maybe someday I will. It's not that I think I wouldn't like dancing, I just never learned how.

Well, this is probably a shorter letter than you'd like to get, but it's about all I can write. The last thing I will say is that I'm fine. I'm pretty tired most of the time, but I haven't gotten injured except for cutting my finger once and that healed up pretty quick.

I hope you are well too, and I hope you write back to me.

Your friend,

Mack

Mack went through several battles over the next week. They'd surprised the Japanese Army and had set up a defensive perimeter around the airfield, but the Japanese Army was doing their best to kick them off the island. It was during the lull between two of these battles he was getting some rest and food other than C-rations. He'd just sat down with his mess kit when he heard "Mail Call". Mack ate his beef stew and listened intently. He'd about given up hope when he heard, "Private Mack Donaldson".

Mack waited to open the envelope until he'd finished eating. It was torture, but he wanted to be able to give the letter all his attention. After dunking his mess kit in the barrel of boiling, soapy water and scrubbing it clean, then dunking it in another barrel of plain boiling water, he went back to his gear, sat down, and looked at the typed return address on the envelope. He smiled when he read Valerie Wilson, Louisville, Kentucky.

He took his time slitting open the envelope. That was another way of stretching out the pleasure of reading the letter. When he took it out of the envelope, it was typewritten with a scrawled signature, just like the first one.

August 31, 1942

Dear Private Mack Donaldson,

I did not know it would take so long for a letter to get to you and for yours to get to me. I guess when the Marines have to fight a war, letters do not have priority.

I am so happy you wrote back to me. I was so excited I told all my friends about getting your letter and what you wrote about. I hope you do not mind that I did that, but I just had to tell everybody.

I think I know where you are, but I will not write that down. My mother and I listen to the radio every night to see how things are going and the day I got your letter, they said there was a big battle going on. It sounds really scary and I am glad I am not there. I am glad you are though. I wish you didn't have to be there and I do not want you to get hurt, but we have to show the enemy that they can not bomb us and expect to get away with it. On the radio, they say you Marines are doing just that. I am so proud of you.

You are a big man. My father was just five feet eight inches and he did not weigh as much as you do. I do not know if you want to know about him or not, but I will tell you. He was in the Navy and got sent to Pearl Harbor right after Thanksgiving last year. My mother was going to take us there so we could have Christmas together. It is a good thing she did not. He was one of the men killed when the Japanese made their surprise attack.

I was really sad for a long time. My father was away from home a lot, but I still loved him. After a while though, I realized he did what he did to protect us and our country. I still miss him, but I know he died fighting for our country and I am proud of that. He is buried in a cemetery there, and someday I am going to visit his grave and put flowers on it.

Well, that was a pretty sad thing to write when I am supposed to be making you feel better. I am sorry if it made you sad too. I just thought I should tell you more about myself.

Guess what? I had a birthday on the sixth of September, so I am seventeen now. I know that to you I am still just a girl, but I do feel older. When is your birthday? They probably will not let me send you a birthday card because it would be too heavy, but I can at least wish you a happy birthday in a letter.

Well, I need to go do my homework now. Sometimes it seems dumb to make us do homework after we have been at school all day, but my mother says it is to help us learn. She was a teacher before she went to work in the factory, so I guess she knows.

Please stay safe and do not get hurt. I liked reading your letter and I want to read a lot more of them. I will keep writing and telling you what I am doing.

Your friend,

Valerie

Mack wrote back to Valerie that night, and he kept writing to her after every letter she sent. She was first just a person he enjoyed hearing from, then became a friend. He began to open up a little more to her, and she to him. Her letters followed him from island to island, and over the months that stretched into years, those typewritten letters with the scrawled name at the bottom gave him a reason to keep going when he was exhausted and a reason for why he was there.

Iwo Jima was the worst he'd experienced so far. The Japanese were dug in and had them pinned down on the beach. Time after time, they tried to break out. Finally one group of Marines made it to the top of Mount Suribachi, and that energized the rest of the men dug into the black sand of the beach. The battle was to continue for another month. It wasn't until Mack took a bullet in the shoulder and was sent to the rear he had time to write, and he tried not to worry Valerie.

February 24, 1945

Dear Valerie,

I apologize for not writing but we have been fighting constantly for several days. It looks like we're going to win though. If you saw what I saw yesterday, you probably would have cried. I know it's not something a Marine should do, but I had tears in my eyes. It made me proud to be a Marine.

I don't want to worry you, but I got shot right after that. It wasn't bad. A bullet just went through the muscle of my shoulder. It didn't even hurt that much when it happened. It did later though. I can write now because I'm in a field hospital. The medics say I'll be fine in about a month and they'll send me back to my unit. I hope I can get back there before all this is over. I need to be there with my guys.

I think I told you about my other promotions. Well I got promoted again. It's just a field promotion to sergeant and won't be a permanent thing. They're my guys now because our platoon sergeant got hit pretty bad and was evacuated to a hospital ship. I don't know if being a sergeant is a good thing or a bad thing, but I'm now Sergeant Donaldson and I have to tell my guys what we're going to do.

I remembered to wish you a happy birthday, but I never asked you how it feels to be eighteen. That means you're officially a woman now, doesn't it? I remember when I turned eighteen. I thought I could do anything I wanted. Then Pearl Harbor happened and I enlisted and found out I couldn't do anything unless the Marine Corps wanted me to do it. It seems funny to me now. Back then I thought I knew everything about everything. Now, I know how little I know about anything.

I do know I've gotten very close with you over the past two years. I would really like to meet you when all this is over. I'd just like to meet the woman who's stuck with me for so long. I'm surprised you haven't found a man your age, but I guess the draft is taking them about as fast as they get out of school.

I was thinking the other day that you're sort of like a girlfriend. You're a long ways away and we've never really met, but I can tell you things I'd never tell anybody else. I see men around me who don't have anybody, like I used to be, and I feel sorry for them. No matter how tired I am or how bad it gets, when I get your letter I can forget about all that for a little while. If that doesn't make you a girlfriend, I don't know what would.

Maybe I'm thinking it's more than it is, but I hope that doesn't make you angry. I'm just thankful you wrote that first letter to me. I can never tell you how much that one and all the others meant to me.

I don't think the war will last too much longer. We have to fight hard and it's taking more time than the Generals would like, but we are winning. We're also very close to Japan now, so they'll have to surrender or they won't have a country left.

Your boyfriend, I hope,

Mack

Mack was back with his unit and mopping up what was left of the Japanese defenses on Iwo Jima when Valerie's next letter reached him.

March 20, 1945

Dear Mack,

I was so worried that I hadn't gotten a letter in a while. When I read that you got shot, I started to cry. I don't want anything else to happen to you. You've been safe for so long, and I pray every night that you'll stay that way.

The radio says it won't be much longer, just like you wrote in your letter. I hope it's not. I'm tired of hearing about the war and how many men have been killed and wounded. I'm also worried sick about you and have been for a long time.

I guess I didn't realize that was happening until I didn't hear from you for all that time. When I didn't get a letter, I started thinking about all the bad things that could have happened to you. I tried not to think about the worst thing, but sometimes I did, and then I'd start to cry. My mother would ask me what was wrong, and I'd tell her how I felt about you. She would hug me and tell me she was sure you were safe but just busy fighting. I don't think she really believed that, but it did help. I'm really sorry you got shot but since you're all right, I can breathe a little easier.

I do feel like your girlfriend. It seems a little odd to feel that way since we've never met in person, but in your letters I can kind of tell what type of person you are. I would like you to call me your girlfriend if you want, and I'll call you my boyfriend. None of the other girls I know can say they have a boyfriend in the Marines and fighting for our country. It made me proud to tell them I have a friend who is, and I'll be prouder to call you my boyfriend.

I would like to meet you when you come home. When you know when that is, please let me know. My mother would like to meet you too. Our phone number is Bradley 479, so if you want to, you can call us and we'll meet you at the train station.

I'm just so happy you're all right I could jump up and down. I guess if I'm now a woman, like you say, I shouldn't do that. I should run up to you and give you a big hug, but I can't do that right now, so I'll just be happy as a lark. I told my mother about you getting shot but that you're all right, and she's happy too. Just stay that way for me, OK.

Love,

Your girlfriend Valerie

Mack fought his way across Iwo Jima until the Marines were replaced by the Army. His unit then assaulted Okinawa and captured the island after days of bloodshed. It looked to him as if his next battle would be on the Japanese mainland, and as hard as they'd fought on Okinawa and Iwo Jima, he knew it would be a bloody and costly battle. He was relieved when two atomic bombs finally brought Japan to its knees. On September 2, Japan formally surrendered and on September 10, Mack was on a troop transport ship bound for San Francisco. Thirty-eight days later he was on a train chugging towards Louisville. He was still in his Marine dress uniform because he had nothing else to wear, but he was a civilian.

When the train stopped in Chicago, he found a phone booth and asked the operator to dial the Louisville phone number. Valerie's mother answered the phone. Mack introduced himself and asked to speak to Valerie.

Valerie was crying when she said "Hello". They talked a little before he said, "I have to hang up because the train for Louisville is about to leave. If you can get to the station, I should be there in about four hours."

Four hours and ten minutes later, Mack picked up his duffel bag and stepped onto the platform of the Louisville train station. He looked for Valerie and her mother, and finally saw two women standing together at the edge of the crowd. The younger looking of the two held a sign in front of her face that said, "WELCOME HOME MACK".

Mack ran to them, but stopped a few feet away when he saw the long white cane the young girl carried and the dark glasses she wore even though the platform was in the shade.

"Valerie?", he asked.

The young girl tapped the platform with her cane and walked in the direction of his voice until she tapped his foot.

"Yes, I'm Valerie. You're not very close. Is that because you're disappointed?"

"No, just surprised. Why didn't you tell me?"

"At first, I just wanted to have a friend, so it didn't seem right. Then, after a while...well, I was afraid you wouldn't like me any more and you'd stop writing."

Mack took the two steps that separated them and took her free hand.

"Valerie, it wouldn't have made any difference, not over there. Now...well, I'm surprised, but how could I not like the woman who helped me get through the war. If you're still of a mind to, I'd like to get that hug you said you'd give me."

Valerie dropped her cane, put both arms around his neck, and hugged him tight. When she backed away slightly, Mack saw tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Mack, thank you."

"For what? I should be the one thanking you."

"Thank you for not just walking away like most men do."

Mack chuckled.

"I couldn't just walk away from my girlfriend, now could I?"

"Can I see you then? I have to touch you. I see with my fingertips."

"Sure."

Valerie gently touched his face all over, and smiled.