Song: Letters from war

By: Mark Schults

Start song at (1)

Thank you to all the Veterans, for your serves, sacrifices, and courage! It is such an honor to know some of you and to meet the rest of you! We are safe and free because of you! Thank you so much!

"Being the ones at home, waiting for news, during war is hard as well." Grandma Jakens, Jamie's mom's mom, said. (1) "Each day you walk to the mailbox and hope for a letter. Even if it's only simple pleasantry talk, like the weather, it helps put your heart at ease. Not everyone is so lucky though. Each letter you write in reply is a wish for them to make it home safe.

Siblings,parents, and spouses, nodded as they remembered the long nights and hard days as they waited for news about their loved ones who were fighting in war.

"The scariest time is when the letters stop, you start to tread hearing the sound of a motor coming up or pulling into your drive." Grandma continued. Her mind flashed back to one particularly hard two years. "One December I got a letter from a man in my son's team. It explains that he had saved the man's life but been captured in the process. I was scared but still held out hope and wrote my prayers for his safe return in letter after letter." She looked off towards the ceiling for a moment thinking about days long past. Tears quickly started to flow down people's cheeks.

Jack could see and feel the fear that his family was experiencing as they remembered their own hard war memories. He remembered seeing and feeling these things before, as he watched families be greeted by men in uniform and then start breaking down crying when they learned that their loved ones were lost. He had felt so hopeless then, unable to do anything to help lift their spirits. His fun had been completely useless! Now he was feeling like that again, only so much worse!

"Day in and day out we worried. We held out hope, but it became harder and harder to keep that going. Thinking about my son made us all emotional. We found it harder to keep our cool when things went wrong. Fights and arguments broke out easier and easier." Grandma continued to enplane about how there were times when she'd be gently told that it was vary possible that her son would never come home. How she lost her appetite at times and would be so struck with grief that she could hardly get out of bed. "By the first year anniversary I started to get back into a regular swing of life again. I still desperately wanted him to come home and kept writing to him every night. Then two years had past when a car pulled in the driveway, seeing the car and the uniforms that the men inside where wearing my heart broke. I thought: 'they're here to tell me he's gone!' I fell to my knees and started to weep! the captain who came up to me was holding bags full of my letters. 'He never got to read them, he's dead!' Thick heavy tears flowed from my eyes blurring my vision, I could not see his face, all I knew was his rank and the uniform he wore. He kneeled down and then wiped the tears from my eyes smiling at me! As my vision cleared I could make out the unmistakable fetchers of my boy."

Jack's heart leapt! He felt the same joy form the other listeners. It wasn't always so happy an ending when the army visited. That is why when the reunions do happen it means so much to all involved and to the people who hear about it latter.

Grandma Jakens continued : "It was my son, and he had received my letters as soon as the prisoner camp he and 20 other men and women were being held, was attacked. Everyone of the prisoners was found alive, beaten and thin but alive! He told me that my written orders to come home and be safe made him all the more determined to recover. I wrapped him in my biggest hug, it was so good to hold him in my arms!"

Parents, spouses, and siblings, hugged all of the veterans! Happy to have them they are in their arms knowing they were safe and sound with them here and now!

Jack, for his part, stayed back a bit, feeling this was something personal between vets and their family. Only to be grabbed and pulled into a hug by Jamie. "What's this for" He asked.

"Your a vet who came home from a war!" Jamie told him.

"Not the same kind of war-"

"Your still a vet! You deserve a hug to!"

Jack gave in and happy hugged Jamie back.

Bunny stamped into his warren. He shed his thick parka, gloves, and boots. He had finally dyed out after the long tedious trip through his tunnels after the south pole incident. He had garbed all the warm cloths he could find and then begrudgingly took off for the other cold places on his list.

Each and every one had been a complete and total wast of time! Now he had to find some way to check out the ocean. he had tunnels to some of the populated islands but if those didn't have a clue to Frost's whereabouts then he'd have to dig new tunnels to the deserted islands. even then he would only be able to cover a small percentage of the worlds oceans.

"North had better make this up to me! And Jack, oh, he had better be ready to work his feet off!"