While cleaning out some desk drawers this week, I ran across a letter my husband and I received from his Aunt, Laura Boddie Bowers, in in 1991. I was touched by it and saved it. Laura Boddie died several years ago, but her story is just as moving today. I want to share it with you.
"This morning, television pictures of tons of Christmas mail being unloaded by and for our troops in the Saudi desert brought the past into vivid, clear focus.
Once upon a time, many years ago, it was my privilege to spend Christmas Eve with our troops in the field. It happened this way:
During 1943 I was Special Services librarian, attached to the 346th Infantry Regiment of the 87th Division, stationed at Camp McCain near Grenada, Mississippi. In May of that year I had been married to Lieutenant Earle Cooper Bowers, Jr., of Providence, Rhode Island, who was with the 346th.
When the Division was ordered on "big maneuvers" in Tennessee early in December, 1943, I resigned my position in order to follow my husband. The maneuver area was along the Stones River, in what was known as the Nashville-Lebanon Murfreesboro Triangle.
My friend Jane Leighton, whose husband was assigned to Headquarters Company, 346th, had learned to drive in order to come to Mississippi from her home in Boston, and we had become close friends.
Early on the morning of Christmas Eve we received a telegram from our husbands advising us that the problem they were running would be over about noon, and giving us the grid coordinates where we were to meet them. We set off across snowy hills, were almost run down by a tank that went out of control on an icy hill, and reached the Cedars of Lebanon State Park area early in the afternoon, having had no lunch.
In the distance I spotted a mess tent, and we headed that way. Since I had worked closely with the 346th for a year, most of the soldiers knew me. I was delighted to find that the mess Sergeant on duty was a friend of mine. We asked if he could feed two starving army wives, and he replied, "Everything I have is frozen, but I think I can thaw some eggs and bread and peanut butter."
After our substantial lunch, we went on to the designated area for "our" Regiment, and found that the problem had not ended, and that our men were still on duty. I was taken under the protection of Corporal Winoski, an Ohio farm boy. He had floored my husband's tent with fragrant branches from the Cedars of Lebanon that give the park its name. He kept a huge pot of coffee suspended by a rope hung over a tree branch, and as the fire died down he would lower the rope so that the coffee was almost always boiling. After a mug of this strong brew I crawled into the tent and took a nap.
Late on that freezing cold afternoon my husband's patrol returned from their mission, and the soldiers' Christmas celebration began. The week before I had been on leave for a visit with my family in Canton, and, at my husband's request, had scoured the area for paper plates so that his men would not have to wash mess gear on Christmas day. When the string broke in the Nashville railroad station it could have caused my a lot of embarrassment, but everyone - porters, passengers, and bystanders - all jumped to help me gather up my treasure.
On Christmas Eve, however, out in the snowy field, the men lined up with their mess kits. Someone lent me one and I shared the evening meal with the men - as well as I remember we had ham, cabbage, apple sauce, and corn bread.
Supper over, the entire Company gathered on the snowy banks of the Stones River. One young soldier had a guitar, and we sang Christmas carols to his accompaniment. The mail had been delivered, and the boys (the 87th division was the first in the United States Army to have 18-19 year old draftees, so many of the men were very, very young, and homesick) had used the linings of envelopes from Christmas cards to fashion ornaments for a small Christmas tree they had cut from the forest. One young Jewish boy had contributed a Yule log from all the logs that were everywhere along the river bank, and, although everything was snow-covered, he had sprinkled the Yule log liberally with foot powder "snow".
We drove back to Nashville with our husbands, who had a day of Christmas leave. And the sound of those young voices, singing old familiar carols to the accompaniment of the music of the guitar, rings in my ears as each Christmas comes, and I remember that there in the snowy hills of Tennessee the soldiers and I shared a White Christmas, complete with decorated tree, Yule log, traditional carols, and most important, togetherness. And that was to be the only Christmas Eve I was ever to share with my soldier husband - a precious memory that will last as long as I live."
Sadly, Laura Boddie's husband, Earle Cooper Bowers, Jr. was killed September 27th, 1944, fighting outside Rimburg in the Netherlands. He is buried in Northern Belgium.
Please give a thought to those who are far away from home this year in the service of their country, and hold tightly to those you love.
Peace on Earth.
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