6th April 1917
Dear Mother and Sister,
Today was the announcement we have all been waiting for and dreading at the same time. America has officially declared war on Germany although I am sure by the time you receive my letter you will already know. The atmosphere in camp has been so tense it is like you could cut it with a knife and it would be the consistency of butter. I do not know what is going to happen next, but I shall keep you updated the best that I can. This will be providing that they will let us update you on what happens. No one knows yet, everyone is in a little bit of a panic. You know it is bad when Rigo is worried. I think he stayed up late last night keeping an eye on me. I do not want him to worry about me because I am safe now.
I do get why he could worry though. Father could discover these letters I have written to you at any time and become angry again. I do not think he believes that he murdered me anymore. I am not sure what access he has to the records of the camp here, but word must be getting back from camp of how well people are doing, I am just speculating at this point since I do not know the truth, but what I do know is I have a sinking feeling that we are going to be discovered soon and it is not going to end well. I just ask that if he does read this whatever he does that he does not harm you both. He can hurt me all he wants just to leave you alone. All you wanted to do was protect me and I will forever be grateful for it.
Thinking back, I do not think I would ever change my childhood despite the trauma it has given me and what I have been dealing with since I arrived. I think it has made me stronger and I have sworn to myself that when I become a father, I am going to be nothing like him. I am going to give my child the childhood I missed out on and all the father and son bonding time I desperately craved as a young boy. I still to this day fail to understand why we were chosen to be beaten and abused for so long. I suppose we will never know the real reason why. I cannot say for sure if we are better off not knowing. I do not believe it was the army life that made him do it, not after meeting so many different officers who have children who have followed in their footsteps and the love between them.
I hope father is not angry with today's announcement. I know he will be frustrated that he is not allowed to go on the frontlines like he wants to. They have kept him in the office in Los Angeles for a reason and that reason has nothing to do with Rigo and I being trained for the frontline war. We have been told as much by one of Rigo's friends. He said that they were trying to get the fittest former officers back training for the front, so we have the strongest chance of winning against Germany and their allies. It is fair enough because the training we have gone through so far has been very physically demanding and I do not see it being something that father will particularly do well in. He is getting older now, his oldest child is in his 30's now.
Not that his age and lack of fitness will prevent him from trying multiple times to try and get sent to the camp, because you and I both know he is stubborn as all hell and he will try until he gets too frustrated. I think after years of reading our letters to you the officers who check through them know of our situation right now, but it is hard to prove anything without any concrete evidence and that is something we do not have now. Well, I suppose they have my injuries from when I first arrived but that was four months ago now. It is weird to write or even to think we have been here for four months now. It feels like just yesterday we were getting off the train and settling into camp for the first time.
I miss you both so much. I thought it was going to be harder being away from home for the first time for so long, but I feel as if I am doing okay. It would be much better if I were at home with you, but at the same time I feel like I was meant to be here with Rigo, Jorel and George as well as my three new friends. Jordon, Matthew, and Dylan have been so nice and non-judgmental to the little bits of information they have been privy to. Of course, Rigo and I were never going to tell them everything that has been going on because quite frankly there are some things about what we went through that I really do not want to be telling anyone else. It's bad enough having those memories myself let alone reliving it by telling someone else.
Jorel told me he wants to send you a letter mother. He misses you just as much as we do, and he asked me just the other day if he could send you a letter and I thought he had gone crazy. He does not need my permission to write a letter to you if he wants. You are just as much of a mother to him as you are to Rueben, Rigo, Lisa-Marie and I. I am not going to gatekeep who writes to you or not, if you do not want him or any of our friends to write to you then you would say so and I know that for sure. I would be selfish if I ever did that. I think I would rather be dead than to be selfish. I think Jorel knows that he can just write to you whenever he feels like it now, but I am not one hundred percent sure.
I am so happy that Dylan and I are in the same squad. We get along well and work well together as a team which is what the Drill Sergeants have been asking for. We get along with the rest of our squad, just not quite as well as there were some tensions between us in the beginning. It is hardly surprising considering that they all anticipated being placed with their friends and not separated as we all have been. They tried to keep us together but at the same time they had to look at our abilities and make sure that they had an even mix of skill sets in each squad so that each member does not have to take on too much. I think they explained it that they would want one who is very good at first aid, one who is the best problem solver, someone who is very good tactically and someone who is very good at fighting.
It is all in preparation for the frontlines, just like pretty much everything we have done so far has been for. They say that France is having some problems with Germany and are close to losing over one million men due to the war. That would be more than enough to bring the morale of their army down to the point where they would not want to fight anymore. I hope for their sake that it does not happen, but we cannot predict or control these things from the other side of the ocean. All we can do is continue to train and learn the skills, so we are ready to fight and join them hopefully in the next few months. I want to make you and sister proud. I would like to include father in that too, but I think I have come to terms with the fact that he will never be proud of me for as long as I am either alive or dead.
Someone at breakfast this morning got so angry when he heard what the chocolate cake we have just started getting was made out of. It has been around since 1912 so I am not sure why he has never heard of a chocolate potato cake before. There are going to be some more weird food recipes before this war is over I can tell. Food is going to be rationed more now that we are involved in the war, so people are going to have to come up with clever ideas on how to make food if we cannot get hold of things like flour and chocolate. I still prefer milk biscuit pudding, but chocolate potato cake is surprisingly good. I wonder what else sounds like it would be absolutely disgusting, but actually really good.
I am sorry that this letter is all over the place, but it in a way reflects how my thoughts have been over the last day or two. I think it would be fair to say that everyone on camp have had their worlds turned upside down by the events of the last few weeks. I hope that this will not last forever and one day I can write to you and tell you that we are coming home, safe, and alive and the war finally over. I love you both so much and I hope everything is going well back home. I included some more drawings this time.
All my love forever
Private First-Class Daniel Murillo
Margo Murillo's point of view
Oh my poor boy, I always feel so sad when I receive his letters. Not because of the contents of them, apart from today he often writes so happily about what is going on. I am sad because he should be sitting by my side and feeling safe at home. I knew the day would come where he would go off to training, but never in a million years did I think that he would go so early. I know why and I respect his decision and I wish I could have done more to prevent it. I told Jake, his boss that he had left the day after and he was shocked that Daniel had decided to go in the condition we both knew he was in. I would have arranged it so that he had a chance to heal first and then go off to join his older brother, but my bastard husband took that away from me.
My husband took everything that should have been joyful about having three boys and ruined it permanently. I was grateful to have him involved as little as possible during the first twelve months of each of their lives as I get the only good memories with them. They were obviously too little to remember it themselves. I wish I had the money at the time to make photos and videos of them back then so they could see for themselves that their infant months were as peaceful as I have described to them. I wanted them to have the best childhoods possible, but I was not to know what my husband had planned for them. If I had the money I would have left before it became too bad, and I will forever feel guilty for that not happening.
I know they would tell me that it was not my fault and there was nothing that I could have done to change that, but I will forever feel that guilt for as long as I am alive. It has gotten worse since they have all left and even my daughter has been begging to leave to become a nurse or any job that is still going to allow us to leave. Each time she asks, my husband says no and we both know the exact reason why. She is the only one left and if she were to work then he knew that we would be on our way to leaving him for good and once our two sons returned from the war that they would be following us. As far as I am aware he still believes that Daniel has passed away, but like my son said in his letter it is not going to last too much longer.
Rigo has been sending me money in hopes that combined we can save enough money for the divorce and moving out. I have had to move its hiding place several times due to my husband finding it and stealing some for his drinking habit. Nothing it out of bounds to him which is why I am worried that he has already found Daniel's letters and could be plotting all of the ways that he could harm my boys even further especially for our plan to lie to him to get Daniel out of Los Angeles and to safety. I get the pictures out from the envelope Daniel had left them in to protect them on their journey to my house. He had been sending more and more of the boys he had become friends with, so I had an idea of what they looked like.
I am most interested in Dylan and how Daniel draws him and them together. It as in the same sort of way he has drawn Matthew and Jordon when they think that he was not looking at them. With love for each other in their eyes. Now I am different to most mothers that I know in the fact that it does not matter to me that my son marries a lovely woman or a lovely man. What matters most to me is that my child is in a loving and happy relationship I suppose giving the time I live in that it would not be possible, but a woman can dream. After everything that my boys have been through they deserve to live a long and happy life with whoever they choose. The same goes for my daughter too even if she just finds a rich man to marry.
That is more or less the way that my husband has been forcing her to be. She must be the obedient housewife he accuses me of never being. I do the best that I can, I spend my days cooking and cleaning and teaching Lisa-Marie everything she needs to know. He makes it incredibly difficult to be a loving wife when I do not love him anymore. It is hard enough to love someone who is nasty to you verbally every day but harder when he spend your children's lives tormenting them and abusing them both physically and mentally. The day that I finally get to divorce him will be the best day of my married life. I would rather stay single than ever attempt to find love again. I think I am done with relationships.
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Private First-Class Danny Murillo's point of view – 11th April 1917
Today is Dylan's 23rd birthday although there is not much celebrating to be done. Rigo has something up his sleeve but he will not tell me. He knows if I know then Jorel will find out then any chance of surprising anyone will be completely ruined. I bet it will have something to do with a cake since we cannot celebrate it any other way. It is the same way that we did it for Matthew in the beginning of April and we will do for any other birthday that we celebrate as long as we are together. We had already told him happy birthday and I kissed him in private before we had breakfast. We are still being cautious of who sees us kiss as we had been warned that relationships formed on camp between men would not be allowed.
In fact it is so not allowed the punishment for being caught kissing someone is that both of you are sent home and not allowed to return. We have always been careful when it comes to displaying affection in the billet and have never even dared to kiss each other outside of these walls. Matthew and Jordon are in the same boat as we are, we all had to reveal ourselves to each other after we caught each other kissing one night. There was no way either of us could say that we did not support the relationship considering that we are in those relationships ourselves. It did mean that we could kiss in front of any of the boys in the billet since they all knew, but we liked and enjoyed more intimate moments in Rigo's room with his permission.
"Did you ever think you would celebrate your twenty-third birthday here?" Jordon asks Dylan while we eat lunch. I had been meaning to ask him what he would be doing if he was not currently training for the war. His parents are incredibly rich and have been since before he was born, and he certainly would have been spoiled. "Not really, but now that I am here I cannot imagine myself being anywhere else. I am making my parents proud, and I am giving back to a country which has helped them so much," Dylan replies. His maturity and selflessness is so unexpected considering everything that is supposedly known about sons of rich parents. There are some here that do prove that stereotype that rich children are spoiled brats.
"We are glad you are here Dylan. We need more people like you in this world. Especially with how Edward has been behaving lately," George says. Edward Conway is one of the newer recruits and it was clear for all to see that he was nowhere near prepared for the challenges of military life. He has rich parents and a lot of money to his own name. You could tell by how pristine his uniform was and how expensive his shoes were. Another way you could tell was by his attitude and how he has been expecting people to be doing his work for him and has had to be put in his place a lot of times during his short time here. He was even made to do 20 laps this morning before breakfast because he had expected someone else to tie his shoelaces.
"Some people never change though. I do not think that Edward is going to sort himself out soon," I tell George. It was true though, if you had a look at every write up that Edward had received since the day he arrived you could tell that they were all for either the same thing or something very similar. It was all to do with his attitude towards other recruits and how he expects some of the poorer recruits to do jobs for him like prepare his uniform and polish his shoes when we are all to do it ourselves since it would not be possible on the frontlines. "That is true. I do not see him cut out to be on the frontlines if I am being honest," Rigo says. They can say that because that is their opinion and there would be something that they could do about it.
"I think I am different than other rich children because my parents always made me aware that I should appreciate where I came from and that others would not be as fortunate as I," Dylan says. I would love to meet his parents one day. They sound amazing, and the type of people my mother is. I miss my mother and I am hoping to receive her reply to my latest letter soon. I was a bit apprehensive about sending it considering I knew that father had a potential to intercept them and to come after me for it. Rigo told me to send it anyway because it helped mother deal with the fact that we were all away with the army and that she could remind herself that I was still alive and doing well when she has to say that I am dead.
We are going to celebrate Dylan's birthday later in a little private tiny party after dinner. That is all Rigo has told me so far and I was making sure that I did not tell Jorel otherwise the surprise would be ruined. Lunch is now over, and we have to head back to the classroom to learn more. Now we have had additional lessons added where we learn about Germany and the type of warfare they like to engage in so that we can counter it. I think today we have a lesson on submarine warfare which is interesting since it is one of the main reasons President Woodrow Wilson changed his mind on his neutral stance on the war. Americans have already died because of Germany and it is about time we started fighting back.
I was right, we learned about the submarines Germany has and what they have done with them so far. It was something that most of us already knew but it did not hurt to go over it again. Dylan was not aware of it, so he learned something new. If it was going to help us win the war then we were going to do anything to prepare ourselves to deal with our new enemy. I feel like the last week or so has brought us as a squad closer together as we come to accept the realization that we will eventually be going on the frontlines together and it will be sooner than any of us could have ever anticipated. We are going to be having more team working lessons as well because we never know when we will be deployed.
We could be deployed as early as next week or as late as months from now. They are still keeping an eye on the situation in the frontlines in France and seeing what needs to be done. They think that we are not quite ready for that kind of battle just yet. We barely know how to fire the weapons we will be issued with let alone plan and succeed in an attack. Most people in this camp do not know what a trench is, and we will have to dig plenty of those. I remember being just 8 years old and father forcing Rigo, Ruben and I to build a trench in our backyard on a really hot summer's day to help with his sick twisted fantasy that the American Army was out to get him for his knowledge, and we were to fight them.
It was one of the worst things that I remember about my childhood. Rigo did most of the work with Rueben as I was too young and too weak to dig for the long periods of time father had asked for. I seem to remember that the three of us got sun stroke because of it and it made him even angrier when mother told him off for it while she had to treat the three of us. I think Rueben ended up in the hospital, but my own memories of the time are blurred because I was so ill myself at the time. At least I can help dig the trench this time and have a good idea of what we need to do. I suppose it is handy to have these experiences already. The only downside would have to be the sun stroke because that was awful.
I was telling Dylan about this on the way to the next lesson and he was a little less shocked as he has been when I have been telling him some of the stories of my childhood I felt comfortable with telling him about. He often reacted with a lot of anger when I would tell him of some of the more nastier childhood experiences. He has calmed down a lot, but he wanted to hug me tightly when I was done retelling my trench tale. "I am telling you now a lot of people would want to harm that man if they ever came across him," he tells me. I knew that much, if we decided to physically fight back against my father we would have back up. Rigo and Rueben would feel the same way as me if it were suggested.
"Yeah could you imagine he shows up trying to harm me and Rigo and ten or fifteen other people show up to beat the living crap out of him for ever harming us," I tell him. I could almost picture it myself now. Rigo and I standing together facing off with our father for the final time and then all of a sudden Dylan, Jordon, Matthew, Jorel and a few other people who would have a bone to pick with him come rushing to our defense. It almost sounds like an epic action movie; two young men spend their whole lives in fear from their father. Then war happens and changes everything as they experience freedom, new friends, and romance. Finally there is a massive boss battle and the young men, and their new friends are victorious.
Dylan seemed rather amused by my idea. "You should write that as a second book so in the future they will have a choice of a biography, true story movie or a super cool action hero one," Dylan says, he has been helping me proofread my story as I have been writing it. I have been somewhat in a rush to get as much of it done as possible. The threat of my father looms over my head as I write my experience on page after page of paper. I am not writing Rigo, Ruben, Lisa-Marie, or my mother's stories as they are stories for them themselves to tell and not me. I am not going to deny them the chance to write their stories, even if we have no real control over who lives, who dies, or who tells our story.
"I might if I ever have the time to do it. I would rather finish the truthful one first and then see how I feel about making a superhero action one," I tell him. I am hoping that Dylan would understand my reasoning behind it. I would love to make a less serious more fun story about my life and how amazing that would be, but that is not something I want to focus my attention on right now. I do not know when I am going to be killed by my father for real and then my story would never be completed, and people would never get to know what a monster he really is. "That is fair enough Danny, I would never want you to feel forced about making a superhero book if you are not comfortable," Dylan tells me.
"This must be the weirdest birthday ever for you right?" I ask, some time has passed since our superhero conversation and we are now on our way back to the billet to get our cups and cutlery so we can go to dinner. "Definitely but I get to spend it with you for the first time since we started dating so it is totally worth it in my book," he tells me, whispering most of it in case another officer walks past and overhears our conversation. He is quite the romantic which when I first met him I was not expecting whatsoever. He would strike you as the type who would spend all their free time partying and having multiple affairs with multiple women at any given time. He is definitely not like that at all though.
"You giant ball of cheese," I tell him, as we walk up the steps and through the doors of the billet. Jorel shook his head as he had heard me when we walked in. He does support us in the way that a silly big brother would do, and I appreciated it a lot. I think he was happy to have the heat off him as people often speculated back home that we were in a homosexual relationship with each other. "But it is true, I am happy to have my twenty-third birthday be the first of many birthdays I will spend with you as my loving boyfriend," Dylan say, which proved the point of how much of a silly cheesy person he is. Jorel shook his head more as I went to grab my cup with my cutlery already in it and washed from lunch.
"Ahh I see what you mean now Danny," Jorel says, and we all head off to dinner together. It is almost time for the surprise for Dylan and I am excited. Like previously mentioned it is not going to be a massive surprise, but just something nice to take his mind off the fact that we are now in a war and everything has been rough for the last four months or, so we have been here. Wow, four months in the army. It does not seem like much to begin with but if you think about where you were four months ago to where you are now especially in a whole new career path it is massive. I was making teas and coffees and serving various treats four months ago and now I am preparing to possibly go overseas for the first time.
Rigo hugged me tightly when I got to the dining hall and place my tray down at our table. He has had a little bit of a rough day, but he is dealing with his own emotions and struggles like I have been. "You okay Rigo?" I ask him, a little bit worried about him because I love and care about him a lot. He knows that he is one of the ones who tends to bottle his emotions up more than I would. "Yeah just had a brief moment of panic earlier but I promise you I am fine now," He tells me. He does worry a lot about something bad happening to me during the day that he can do nothing to protect me from. There are not a lot of threats here but after dealing with a lifetime of a man who was not supposed to hurt you, you have little trust in everyone else.
"I am glad you are feeling better Rigo. Just let me know if you want to talk to me about anything," I tell him. Then we enjoy dinner in a comfortable silence like we do on most evenings and ignore the ruckus of the people around us and yet another fight breaks out. It was pathetic really, but we could imagine the tension going between people especially between those of us who have been here for longer and know what we are getting into and those who are newer and naiver about what is to happen or those like Edward who are just unlikable. I think Edward was involved in this one, but I was not one hundred percent sure because I was doing my best to ignore what was going on around me, all the fighting and yelling.
I look to George who was watching, ready to intervene should he need too. He is one of the more physically stronger men of the officers on guard if he needed to and he was more than capable of breaking up two men if they were physically fighting and you could not get them to stop without pulling them apart. "It was Edward again, but luckily they managed to break it up before it go too serious," George tells me. I was not surprised, and I would not be surprised if by the time June comes that Edward would be kicked out from the army. He does not seem to be the kind of guy who would fight for his country at all he would want someone to fight for him if he could which is not what you signed up for.
Now it was the moment that we had been waiting for. It is time for Dylan's birthday surprise. Rigo had me light a candle on top of a chocolate potato cake he had managed to get from the kitchen. If you were nice enough to the kitchen staff then you would be rewarded with that by favors and treats whenever you asked. That is how we had managed to get hold of this cake. Then we sang happy birthday to Dylan and he blew out the candle and we all enjoyed a piece of cake each. "Okay this has got to be the best birthday ever," Dylan says. It is quite nice to hear him say that because you would expect him to have had plenty of enjoyable and memorable birthdays back at home. It was a privilege I will treasure.
"I love you Danny," Dylan tells me when it is time for bed. I hope that he has had as good of a day as possible and that we can share and enjoy many more happy memories like this. "I love you too Dylan," I tell him. It left a tingling sensation down my spine when I finally said those words out loud without fear of the other people in the room turning on us. I would never imagine them hurting us, but it never stops that thought darkly crossing your mind once in a while. It is a rare thought now it is out in the open and accepted. I settle down under my blanket with the bare minimum of uniform on and the rest of it tidied away for the morning thankful to be alive and able to fight to end the biggest war of our lives so far.
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And that is the end of another chapter. I hope you enjoyed!