For those we left behind yet who were with us ever.
FOREWORD
They have gone home now, the shipmates of yesteryear, alumni of Columbia's school of military government and civil affairs. From time to time we assemble socially, they and their noble wives, those still around and by geography available. The professors among them are now the emeriti. Some are former diplomats, while some chose postwar careers in intelligence. All somehow involved in teaching or practicing in the vast field opening when two score years ago America conquered by force of arms and found it must continue the struggle in one form or another to safeguard what had been won.
Has it indeed been four decades since we, wearing the blue and gold, roamed Pacific waters and also traversed Europe?
I rummage through remnants of family moves, packings, discardings, deaths. Box-held remnants resisting inevitable destruction by the later born. And harvest thus these dormant epistles of those by-gone days, among them letters penned in time of war.
Brothers four we were and three today remain. Three went to far Pacific and one the other way, while sister, mother, father, wife held fast to front called home.
By days of victory, first in Europe then Japan, one just returned from Philippines, one on Iwo Jima stood, one in Berlin, by Brandenburger Tor, and one on flattop steaming to Japan.
These four were part of larger number, millions both in khaki and in blue. The stirrings in their hearts were not unique. Nor had they paid the price borne by so many. So could the four recapture fractured youth.
But now two later generations ask: what was it like?
We cannot rightly say. And were we able they could not rightly know. For each must travel his own road.
And yet – we share these gleanings from the days when brothers spoke.
Paul Arnold Borel
Great Falls, Virginia
Spring 1985
FOREWORD
They have gone home now, the shipmates of yesteryear, alumni of Columbia's school of military government and civil affairs. From time to time we assemble socially, they and their noble wives, those still around and by geography available. The professors among them are now the emeriti. Some are former diplomats, while some chose postwar careers in intelligence. All somehow involved in teaching or practicing in the vast field opening when two score years ago America conquered by force of arms and found it must continue the struggle in one form or another to safeguard what had been won.
Has it indeed been four decades since we, wearing the blue and gold, roamed Pacific waters and also traversed Europe?
I rummage through remnants of family moves, packings, discardings, deaths. Box-held remnants resisting inevitable destruction by the later born. And harvest thus these dormant epistles of those by-gone days, among them letters penned in time of war.
Brothers four we were and three today remain. Three went to far Pacific and one the other way, while sister, mother, father, wife held fast to front called home.
By days of victory, first in Europe then Japan, one just returned from Philippines, one on Iwo Jima stood, one in Berlin, by Brandenburger Tor, and one on flattop steaming to Japan.
These four were part of larger number, millions both in khaki and in blue. The stirrings in their hearts were not unique. Nor had they paid the price borne by so many. So could the four recapture fractured youth.
But now two later generations ask: what was it like?
We cannot rightly say. And were we able they could not rightly know. For each must travel his own road.
And yet – we share these gleanings from the days when brothers spoke.
Paul Arnold Borel
Great Falls, Virginia
Spring 1985
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