This is the fifteenth of 87 letters exchanged during World War II between Nicholas Salvatore and Elizabeth Galloway.
For more see Nicholas and Elizabeth.

Winslow, Arizona

January 2, 1944

Middle of nowhere Arizona

Dear Nicholas,

My brother is dead. It was a training accident. So much has happened these last weeks, has it been months? If we’re being honest I wasn’t going to write you again. I never wanted to to begin with. I hate where you are and what you see every day. I purposely avoided getting to know any soldiers. Except for my brother. He was so happy when we said goodbye. My father was proud. Bern was all he cared about. He was never interested in a daughter, not one like me at least. He still believed Gibson Girls existed and why wasn’t I one of them?

I’m back in Arizona with mother. After they got the news my father stopped talking. A few days later he started walking and never came back, never said anything to my mother. I raced back here soon as I could. She’s…not well and it looks like I’ll be here for the duration. What else can I do?

I need to apologize for being so flippant before. Let’s try this again – my name is Elizabeth. I’m 18. I left home to go east but ran out of money in the middle-of-nowhere Texas. I waited tables and served drinks to soldiers because that’s the only job I could do with clothes on. I hated to look at their faces as I knew many of them would never come back. I was afraid. But those that will die will die anyway.

When I was little and we first came to Arizona, my father bought two golden labs from a man in a filling station. I loved those dogs. One day they ran off in the petrified forest and I never saw them again. I cried for weeks.

Nicholas. Write. Please write. Tell me what you’re doing, tell me of your day-to-day routine. Tell me how you are, how you really are, how the men are. Please. I want to know about it. I want to know about you and I want to help.

Take care of yourself, Mon Capitan,

Elizabeth

PS – Note the new address on the envelope

Next letter – January 10, 1944