The Night Before D-Day

Maggie,

It’s almost midnight and I’m sitting on my cot in this Nissen hut with a flashlight in one hand and this paper on my knee. The whole battery is doing the same thing — every man writing to someone. You can hear the scratch of pens all down the row. The guy next to me, Kowalski from Chicago, is trying to write a letter to his mother and he keeps crumpling up the paper. He’s on his sixth try. I told him to just say he loves her, that’s all they really want to hear. He looked at me like I’d said something wise.

Tomorrow we load up. They haven’t told us where, but it’s got to be France. The tension in here is thick enough to cut with a bayonet. Some of the boys are playing poker, pretending it’s any other night. A few are asleep, or trying to be. Me? I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about your face. The smell of your hair after a bath. Our tiny apartment on Bergen Street, the way the light came through the window at three in the afternoon.

I’ve got my parachute laid out at the foot of my bed. The silk is still white. Never been used. I thought about writing your name on it, but I figured the Army wouldn’t appreciate that.

If this letter finds you, I want you to know I had no regrets. I held your hand in every jump. Every time I stepped into the dark, I carried you with me.

Tell our son — if it’s a boy — that his father was part of something that mattered. Tell him I didn’t die for flags or speeches. I died for him. For you. For the chance that he’d grow up in a world where he never has to write a letter like this.

Kowalski finally got his letter right. He’s crying. So am I.

I love you, Maggie. I’ll love you through whatever comes next.

Your Bobby

P.S. — I left my lucky rabbit’s foot in my footlocker. Give it to the kid. It didn’t bring me luck, but maybe it’ll bring him some.