June 11, 1944 

Camp Livingston, Louisiana

Dearest (Mother), 

I have just returned from Bing Crosby’s new show Going My Way. It was splendid, a very sweet story told in a gentle manner. Bing is an accomplished actor and his cast was superb. Don’t miss it. 

In its theme song is one phrase “Sunday morning in my heart”. It made me think of you. You have always had Sunday morning in your heart. I almost called you tonight, put the nickel in the slot, and then changed my mind. 

There is news. Can’t be sure until tomorrow, but I expect to receive my sailing orders for overseas. All we old veterans, but for a few key men, are under orders and on the list. 

I know you don’t like this, and that is the only thing wrong I can find with news of our sailing. Selfishly speaking, it pleases me very much. It’s what I’ve wanted for some time. It sort of gives me a feeling of solidity, like a real soldier, and gives me the chance to say thanks to this old world for all that it’s done for me. 

You see, all of your kids had childhoods that were the most beautiful things in the world. And all because you and Pop were free to bring us up in that enchanted land of Tom Sawyer and Peter Pan, and Winken, Blinken and Nod.

You’d want me to help a little see that (niece) Kathy, and all those like her, had the same chance that we did.

I feel, I almost know, that deep down within your heart that has Sunday morning in it, that you’d want me to do my part. Though it’s really you who is doing the hard part; my end is the easy way.  

I’ve always known how deeply I love you and my family. And yet, knowing you say you’d rather I didn’t go, I continue to look at it in a selfish light. It just gives me another chance to show you how much I do love you. I hope to get a few days home first. I’ll call you tomorrow. So, for now, good night and all my love,  Isham

*

First Lieutenant Isham Reavis sailed for Europe three weeks later, landing in Naples, Italy, in the first week of July to join the Italian Campaign under General Mark Clark. 

In mid-September, after he and his platoon took a hill north of Florence, he was captured by German forces following a fierce counterattack. Five months in German POW camps followed before he and another American lieutenant managed to escape, moving east toward Russia, as they sought to repatriate with U.S. forces.

On February 14, 1945, they found themselves in the Polish city of Lublin, which had already been liberated by the Russian Red Army. It was there, in a small cafe, that he met a young Polish resistance fighter under orders to report south to the front. And though she spoke no English, and he no Polish, 10 days later they got married, beginning a life of 64 years together.

Freedom is never free. Rights don’t exist in a vacuum, but are secured by corresponding responsibilities.

The list of those who have gone before and bore the duty articulated so movingly in the above letter is long and illustrious.

Today, their simple, white gravestones stand as reminders for those of us who follow that we owe a debt that we can never fully repay. Instead, it falls to us to honor them on special days like today, and to rededicate ourselves to the same cause that evoked in them the chance to say thanks to this old world for all that it’s done for me.

END