Heart of Devotion. N.J. Perez

stamped. I would sneak it off to the post office tomorrow morning on my way to school.

      January 31, 1943—Sunday night 8:45 p.m.

      Corda Johnson

      815 N. Mont Clair

      Dallas 11, Texas

      TO: 1st Lieutenant Harold McSwain 01298898

      Company F 351st Infantry, APO 88

      c/o Postmaster, New York, NY

      My dearest darling,

      If I was asked my favorite song tonight, I’d say, “A little on the lonely side” or instead I’d say Sunday night is the loneliest night of the week. Tonight, I feel in a very “blue” mood, Mac. I want to be with you very badly. Honestly, Mac, it’s killing me like, it is. Yes, I know I said I would wait, and I can so long for you, and that’s enough for me.

      I didn’t do much today. I got up about 9:00, dressed, and went to Sunday school and church. Came home, ate dinner, and somehow made it to the evening show. All the gang asked about you. Oh, how it makes me feel good when people ask about you. We all went to the show Broadway Rhapsody. It wasn’t so good. I left about halfway in it and went back down to the house.

      Saw Chester this evening. He said hello. Mother went to church this afternoon. Dad is in bed, and I’m still up writing to the man I shall always love, no matter what happens. Tomorrow is another school day. How boring it is. Mrs. Clark isn’t feeling well. She went to the doctor, and he gave her strict orders to stay in bed for a couple of days. I betcha she’s at school tomorrow.

      Mother just came in to check on me and thinks I’m doing classwork. I must tell you that it was getting pretty cold outside this evening, although it certainly was a beautiful day today.

      During Sunday school this morning, I heard one of my friends was seriously wounded in Germany. I used to go with him, and he’s married now. He’s a grand guy named Matthew, and I think you must know him from back home. It seems a lot of my friends are getting wounded.

      Darling, it’s about time for my bedtime. Be sweet and do be careful. Never forget for as long as you live that…

      I’ll always love you,

      Corda

      The war was intensifying across all battlefronts. On the eastern front, the Russians had just regained Stalingrad from Hitler’s army, but there was no end in sight to Germany’s sheer numbers and ferocity. They kept coming like a colony of ants overtaking new ground. Likewise, the Japanese. Right now, my darling was somewhere in either the Solomon Islands or perhaps already in Melbourne, Australia for rest and refit after his company had won the battle in the Guadalcanal Campaign. Hundreds of men had been lost in action during that fight, and many others had been gravely wounded, and throughout, I worried constantly because malaria had broken out and was spreading like wildfire. However, my prayers had been answered when I had received the letter from Mac just after his company’s victory there. He said he was fine and dandy, and that he loved me and couldn’t wait to see me! He had informed me that the troops would be shipping out soon for rest and refitting.

      Now another month had gone by and I had not received a response from him to my last four letters. So far, the longest it had been between his responses was three months, when they had been right in the heat of battle, but still, I never got used to it. After a month of waiting, agony always settled into the pit of my stomach, and I would not be able to shake it. Mother knew about my love for Mac, although she would not discuss it with Father or me. She did not want me to wait any longer. If Father did know, or even suspect, that I still held a torch for Mac, he seemed to be somewhat more understanding in the matter. All the same, I had chosen not to discuss Mac any further with either of them.

      At school on a Friday, I sat outside during recess with Margie. Before dating Chester, Margie had been interested in Dale, but a month before he was drafted, they had broken up. We were all happy when we discovered that Dale and Mac had been placed in the same Company F of the 351st Infantry Division. She still cared about him a lot; I could tell. For the life of me, I did not understand her. Now she was dating another man who would probably get shipped out quite soon.

      “I’m going to join the American Red Cross this afternoon,” Margie said as we sat at a wooden picnic table behind our school. Wearing her plaid formal red-and-black coat over her beige dress made her look smart, and it was a combination that went well together with her deep blue eyes and her long and curly blond hair. I noticed that she gave a quick glance at my red pumps, I hoped, because she was admiring how well they went together with my blue dress and white blouse. Glancing back at me, she continued, “You should join too—it’ll be great. We can learn things about nursing and things that we can do here to help our troops.”

      I thought about the posters in all the storefronts and really all around town with Uncle Sam pointing his finger out to us young ladies with the words We’ll do our share while you’re over there scrolled at the bottom. Maybe it was time for me to start thinking about how I could contribute to the war effort.

      When I did not respond right away, she said, “You still haven’t gotten a response back from Mac, have you? I’d been wondering myself—it’s been over two months since I sent Dale a letter, and I haven’t heard from him either.”

      “It gets to be so frustrating, Margie. I mean, it could drive a girl absolutely crazy.”

      She was quiet for a moment, and then she said, “Well, I know they’re all right. I mean, you gotta figure they don’t have much extra time to write us like we have. And then, it could be that there is a delay in their letters getting back to us.” I simply nodded my head—I know they mean well, but these excuses did not satisfy my desperate fears in the least.

      The next several days were long, and my mood became irritable. I found myself being unable to shake my blues. School bored me to no end, and my only relief was singing with the band at the end of each day. When the mail came late in the afternoon of each weekday, I ran out to our mailbox by the front sidewalk, and I tried not giving away my anticipation, or my disappointment, were I to discover there was no letter from Mac. When it became unbearable and I could take no more, I often took long walks by myself and cried. I just knew my Mac was the only man for me, and something inside told me that we would marry and have a long and happy life together with three or four kids of our own. He was strong, handsome, brave, and kind. Just the type of man I had always imagined I would love. We had dated six months before he was shipped abroad. We promised each other the night before he left that we would remain always faithful, and that immediately upon his return, we would announce to the world that I was to become Mrs. Harold McSwain.

      On a sunny Tuesday after school, I had gone to band rehearsal and had just trudged home when I saw the mailman putting a pile of mail into our mailbox. I skipped over to retrieve the mail just as our mailman had shut the little door and was walking toward the next house on his route. He must have known I was waiting to hear from Mac because he gave me a little smile as he passed me by. My heart skipped a beat—did this mean Mac’s letter had finally arrived? I threw open the mailbox door and grabbed the assortment of letters there. I felt my pulse racing as I flipped through each one. About halfway through, I saw it, and my heart suddenly grew angel’s wings and began to flutter. I ran inside the house and threw the rest of the letters onto the kitchen table, taking Mac’s into my bedroom and slamming the door shut.

      It was a two-page letter in his own handwriting. He told me they were resting safely in Melbourne but that they would be shipping out soon. He did not know where they would be going, but he had put in a request for a two-week furlough back home. If approved, he thought he would be home by April 5! He professed his undying love for me and said he could wait no longer to see me. He had enclosed a newspaper clipping from an Australian newspaper which had a photo of him along with some of the other American bombers. He looked so proper and handsome with his broad smile and typical look of confidence. The caption below identified my Mac as a master sergeant. Without hesitation, I began to write my reply. As I wrote back, I just knew everything would be all right and that my Mac was coming home to me. The next day, I told everyone in school that my Mac would very soon be coming home for two