Keep communicating during times of war

These letters were not written to be published, they are intimate and private letters to the highest levels of privacy. Nor were these letters meant to be published by those to whom they were sent, had they not felt that the spirit and character of the writer could contribute to strengthening and invigorating those like him, to those called to make great sacrifices for noble motives and official duties. They do not reveal any information about Allied army operations, for that is propaganda's task, and that has always been forbidden for soldiers in all ages. Some important facts have been allowed to pass through the sergeant, but the value of these letters is not in these things; it is in how these heroic and terrifying facts influence the extraordinarily sensitive mind, which has long been trained in ethics, romantic idealism, and those processes through which the mind adapts itself to unexpected, incredible circumstances, and to terrifying actions and duties, which are not dreadful thanks to the effectiveness of the spiritual effort they evoke. They clearly understand the vast extent of the cruelty of war, out of hatred for its savagery. Yet, the writer's heart has not hardened despite his daily dealings with death; he has been purified by compassion, horrors, heroism, and sacrifice, for higher causes and noble duties. William James Dawson