Post #574 - February 8, 1945 Those Hopes for a Happy Ending Increase as the Days Go By

 

8 February 1945

Dearest Evie,

Today marks the eighteenth month since I set sail from the shores of the good ole U.S. A. In retrospect, it doesn't seem so long (it never does - in retrospect), but I'd hate to look ahead to eighteen months more without you, Baby, My life, except for a few interludes, in all that time, has been pretty dull. There is hardly anything any more that I take real pleasure in. When one lives for one particular reason, he isn't much good to anyone when that reason is on the other side of the world, and that has been my outlook in all that time. I'm not bitter about it, Sweet, -  how could I be when I know that so many have been, and are still destined to be, so infinitely more ill-fated? No, I really can't feel sorry for myself, or you either, for that matter, honey, but there is more than one way of losing all that makes life dear. One way is dying - the other way I have mentioned above - being separated from your loved ones. However, “hope beats eternal in the human breast, -”  and those hopes for a happy ending increase as the days go by, and our boys and the Russians make greater inroads into Germany. You asked, in a recent V-mail, if my heart tells me that I'll see you in ’45. Baby, I'd almost forgotten I had a heart, and I've been wrong so many times, that it would be nothing less than presumptuous of me to make a further prediction - yet I can't help feeling (as I always feel) that the war will be over in Europe in a matter of weeks. Guess I’m an incurable optimist, but you asked me. I didn't volunteer my opinion— 

Today, too, I spent most of the working day making entries in our Service Records. The remark read like this: [Auth. 3 overseas service stripes for FS. 1-1/2 years completed date.] All the time I was making the entries I kept wondering if I would ever be entering the authorization for the fourth stripe. Your guess is as good as mine on that score, Sweet. Nothing new to report now, so I’ll just finish this off with all my love to you, my Evie, and the punkin - and all.

Devotedly, Your Phil