Liebste Elke,
Have you heard the news? Feldmarschall Rommel and the Allies are clashing at El Alamein! We arrived too late to join in the fun; the company we are assigned to has hung back on the Libyan border to mind the supply lines. This morning, at first light, we met our commanding officer! He is a captain, tall as you'd expect an officer to be. All the men respect him, but Elke, he is hardly older than I am! Rolf whispers to me that Feldmarschall Rommel granted him command as a special favor because he was such a good soldier, but Rolf tells stories. Last night when we made camp he insisted he could hear some lost, tortured soul howling on the desert, but it was only the drivers of an Italian convoy arguing over their cigarette ration. Ghosts, indeed! Let Mutti know we will be far behind the lines, in no danger. She worries so—do me a favor and ruin your next strudel to give her something else to fret about. Has the garden bloomed yet? Did your father dig up the rosebushes to plant cabbages as he threatened in February?
In Liebe,
Treue Dieter
