Lost letters...

Earlier today I read this and was thinking to myself what a cool story it was that the letters written by Steve Flaherty, a young soldier, before he was killed in Vietnam had been returned by the Vietnamese government (which had used them as propaganda during the war) and were finally delivered to the young man's surviving family... 43 years later... Initially that story in and of itself was interesting enough, but I have mentioned before my fondness for the written word and letters, so I read a bit more. Now... when I went to the linked article, there was a picture, and I was thinking to myself "he sort of looks like someone I might know". (As in Steve Flaherty, doesn't quite look completely Irish.) As I read the article, the story became even more interesting. He had been adopted from a Japanese orphanage in 1956, and had a Japanese mother and American father. He moved to the States with his new family and in 1967 at the age of 20, enlisted in the US Army. He was killed in action two years later, with the rank of Sergeant at the age of 22... The weird thing? He died on March 25... my birthday. Anyways... from the information provided, he would have been born in 1947, after the war (WWII) had ended... so I'm leaning towards love-child... Not that uncommon of a thing. It is my understanding that this occurred with two of my aunts who had been "repatriated" to Japan after the war. I have no idea if it is still taboo to talk about such things. Anyways... one of them didn't marry the Native-American soldier who was the father of her child and the other did marry her big blonde American GI. It is sad and funny in a way that I am more curious about this now that I am older. No... I think I was just as curious about it before, but now it just seems a shame that it is too late to discuss it. Hmm... I went on somewhat of a tangent there.

The first article I linked to was this and the next being excerpts from his letters. One of the lines quoted was “This is a dirty and cruel war but I’m sure people will understand the purpose of this war even though many of us might not agree.” He was probably 22 when he wrote that, and he was 22 when he died. His letters are a treasure.

(Note: Took me rather a long time to write this tonight and now that I've finished I can't think of what to call it. It is now almost 4AM and I want to post it.)