From The LA Times
Editorial

For combat soldiers letters home can be as much about personal therapy as communication — a way to process the horrors one has witnessed, exorcise demons on paper, remember love and family in the midst of death and destruction. They also help the rest of us understand the toll that wars exert on those who fight them. In honor of Memorial Day, we present these letters written by American soldiers, battling in conflicts from the Mexican-American War to Iraq.

The letters were taken from collections of the Legacy Project — a volunteer group headed by Andrew Carroll that preserves wartime letters — and the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. They were edited for space and some had dates and places added, but the words, spelling and punctuation belong entirely to the writers.

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