A Letter To Mother 1918

A LETTER TO MOM 1918 by JOHN M. ARRIBAS At Last Dear Mother, this Nightmare Will Cease In a Few Short Hours There Will Be Lasting Peace A Full Armistice Will Go into Effect at Eleven I Loathe These Soiled Fields, Gutted and Barren First Thing I’ll Do Is Shave and Enjoy a Warm Bath Pray and Thank God I Survived this Time of Wrath I’m Now Thinking about How Soon I’ll Be Home About Marrying Erin, Stop Dreaming Alone I Want to Buy the 20 Acres Behind Martin’s Orchard My Mustering out Pay: and the Money I Hoarded I Have Nearly 1300 Dollars to Start on My Scheme I Want to Marry Erin, She’s My Constant Dream She and I Planned this since the Seventh Grade Our Lives Together Will No Longer Be Delayed We Want Father O’brien to Perform the Rites Then off to Niagara Falls to Enjoy the Sights I Want to Fix up the Abandoned House next to You A Few Nails, a Bit of Paint, Windows, it Will Look New We Need to Decide What Money Crops We Can Seed Tobacco, Grapes Whichever Will Cover Our Needs There Is Another Crop That We Won’t Overlook With Erin’s Flaming Red Hair and My Good Looks We Will Present You with Beautiful Grand Children All of Us Together Again, on Our Own Piece Heaven There’s Some Commotion and a Call to Fall in Missing a Call to Assemble, an Unpardonable Sin “Listen Up” “We’ll Make the Hun Pay up His Debts” Check Your Equipment and Fix Bayonets Fix Bayonets? The War Is Over, Are We Insane? One Last Chance for Some Officers to Gain Fame The Final Charge at Ten Minutes to Eleven Going Through Hell. A Hard Way to Find Heaven I’ll Finish this Letter When I Get Back. A Letter to Mom 1918 (2) Dear Mother: I Found this Letter Tucked in Your Sons Shirt Don’t Know the Words to Write: That Won’t Hurt A Few Minutes Before the Truce, Orders Came Through To Recapture a Hill, We’ll Go over the Top on Cue I Looked Across the Plain 300 Yards of Open Space Enemy Machine Gunners, a Murderous Task to Face Your Son Was a Soldier, on Cue, He Went over the Top I Too Went over the Top, I Found a Crater, Did a Flop Chatter Started Immediately Going on Non-stop Men Scattered but to No Avail, Saw So Many Drop Bone Chilling Chatter, Stopped at the Blare of a Horn War Has Ended, Foes Embraced, Danced. Less Those Torn War Ended for Many Long Before Truce Commenced Fighting the Last Ten Minutes, Doesn’t Make Sense I Found Your Son, My Friend on the Open Plain He Died a True Soldier for Reasons I Can’t Explain The armistice was signed by 5 am and was to be efective at 11 am several field officers decided the could become famous if they fought the last battle. More than ten thousand casualties and 2000 dead in the last 6 hours from 5am to 1am November 11,1918