Letters to Remember

Sitting on the bus on a spring-ish day in April 2019, my mind ran wild wanting to have someone to write a handwritten letter to. I know, handwritten letters... who does that these days? That was also the answer I received when I decided to write letters to my cousins, but instead of a letter back, I got a phone call; on the plus side, at least they took the time to read the cursive-laden sheet of paper.

With my military fanaticism and the many war movies I've watched composed of writing letters back and forth during deployments, I thought that would be fascinating.

However, I did not, and still do not, know anyone in the military. Therefore, writing letters was a definite challenge. Until, and I'm not sure how, I stumbled across a website which included directions on writing to the troops. All I had to do was write a letter, address it to Any Canadian Armed Forces Member and pick a mission across the world to send it to. Therefore, I did it.

My very first letter to a military member was sent in the beginning of May 2019. Was I proud of it? At the moment, absolutely! Am I proud of it now? Absolutely not! I shared way too much information in it making me come off as too self-absorbed and sound like... a loner. I can never feel sorry enough to whoever got that letter. The amount of cringe I'm drowning in is greater than the ocean that swallowed the Titanic.

Now, I can never write to OP UNIFIER (in Ukraine) or anywhere else in Europe. The clumsiness is too much! I've been wishing for that first letter to be wiped off of the face of the Earth; for it to just delete itself! I'm not sure if anyone received it, as no one wrote back, but if they did... it would be best if I didn't continue with that description.

After my first letter, and after waiting for the mail everyday for months, I realized that military members rarely write back. Totally understandable! Nevertheless, I set up some kind of pledge to just keep on writing because I loved doing that.

In February 2020, I sent my second letter to OP PROTEUS in Jerusalem. Another I'm not proud of.

However, a year later in 2021, I bought a book called Dear Aaron, which had half of the story as letters being written back and forth between a deployed soldier and a civilian. The book was amazing, even more so because it unknowingly taught me how to write better letters; like an unstructured observation, I gathered information that I wasn't even thinking of looking for!

That book taught me how important jokes are. Humour is everything. Of course, humour must be appropriate to the situation. Wouldn't want to send some dark humour to a random military member stationed across the world, but if I knew them, I'm sure I could get a seat in their circle... maybe not, maybe that's too far-fetched.

Humour gets you through it all, and who would need it more than those stationed far from home? OK, I can think of many other people that can use some humour but... back to the point.

I'm sure the troops would rather hear a joke about an egg than how I wished I had more friends (I am more than beyond ashamed that I wrote that in my very first letter).

If you were curious, the joke about the egg is: "Why don't eggs tell jokes? Because they'd crack each other up!"

Now, isn't that so-bad-that-it's-funny joke so much better than pretending to see a therapist? Yes. The military member themselves probably needed to see a therapist, not become one.

With the many letters I've written after February 2021, they've been much better... MUCH better. I would now base the letters around the corny jokes I'd find online paired with my own showers of humoristic artillery; I wasn't born on April Fools for nothing!

2021 was my greatest year of writing and sending letters. I must have sent about 14 letters and cards that year. I enjoyed knowing that I could make someone's day by doing that; I don't think my very first letter would qualify, though.

I always included my address on the envelopes too, just in case someone would like to write back. That probably isn't the greatest idea but if someone did mean harm, they could just search me down by my first name, last name, and province alone; I just went ahead and decided to make it easier for them. If my neighbours know where I live, another stranger can too.

Though I had sent more than 20 letters and cards, I never had anyone respond. I wasn't quite expecting them too, either, but I certainly did look forward to getting one back; a glimmer of hope, perhaps? Surely, out of the many letters I sent, someone was bound to write back... right?

In spite of the fact that I had no one write back, I continued writing because my goal was much greater: to cheer someone, who may be far away from home, up. Although, it is always great to be acknowledged too.

In the latter part of 2021, that remained my determination: shifting from wanting to write to someone and have them respond to wanting to write to someone to make their day (hopefully) better.

On 17 December 2021, a nice little postcard from Erbil, Iraq was waiting for me. I remember that day well: me, finishing up my lunch while logging into my afternoon class, the Friday before Winter Break. An early Christmas gift, indeed.

It was quite a surprise, I will say that! It took me a while to grasp what I was holding in my hand. Surely, it's just a piece of paper with some writing on it from a stranger I'll probably never see, right? Except, that's not what that meant to me.

Although I had sent letters for three years up until that point, it was hard for me to believe that I was actually making some kind of difference. I am not a military member, nor do I know anyone in the military, so it was difficult (and still is) for me to completely understand how they would truly feel when receiving a letter from a random Canadian; is it even appreciated by the majority, or do the letters end up in the trash... or like that scene in Generation Kill ? (cue nervous nail-biting)

That postcard also made me realize that my letters are making it, and that I'm not just talking into a void like teachers during online school.

Also, the captain that wrote back used three exclamation points! T-H-R-E-E. What an absolute champ! I had no idea that three lines with dots underneath them could make me feel so special.

Recently, I've written another letter addressed to Kuwait but I won't be sending it. Well, at least not to Kuwait because I just found out that that mission will soon come to a close.

Many missions in the Middle East are ending, I suppose more so with the increased focus on Eastern Europe.

After the very first few letters that I sent overseas (which were all addressed to European countries), those letters, to me, seemed like spawns of Satan; I hesitate to send another to Europe. That rather intense awkwardness plagues the situation, so I had turned to the Middle East to "start fresh". Of course, that won't work now. That being the case, I either write to Europe or abort mission.

Then, I think about the reason I continued writing letters for so long: to make someone's day great. I wouldn't want to ditch that opportunity because of one or two not-so-great and I'm-still-trying-to-get-the-hang-of-this letters I wrote three years ago. No matter what I write and how good it may be, whether it's in this story or in a letter to someone, I'm going to think about it a couple years from now and cringe at it anyways; my new mantra is "YOLO" and then I hit full send.

Maybe writing letters to the military will end here, or maybe it's just the beginning of a new chapter. Maybe.