# Found WWII letters from a vet to his wife. Found the couple and delivered their mail.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [August 7, 2002, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706 "2002-08-07T00:58:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Crescent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crescent)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2002, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/41 "2002-08-08T03:34:44Z")
Thanks Johnny L.A. I think I’ll give the Bureau of Veteran Affairs a call. I appreciate your help.
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### Author:  [@d12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/d12)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2002, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/42 "2002-08-08T03:40:56Z")
Touching. Thats the stuff books and movies are made of. I’m kinda jealous acctually.
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### Author:  [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2002, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/43 "2002-08-08T07:14:17Z")
Awesome stuff, **Clayton**. Somewhere along the line, in some way, your thoughtful kindness will be repaid, and not necessarily in the way of money.
Well done.
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### Author:  [@BalmainBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BalmainBoy)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2002, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/44 "2002-08-08T07:47:41Z")
You remember this too, Clayton.
This will be a significant event in YOUR history as well.
When you’re their age, the experience will still resonate in you.
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### Author:  [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2002, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/45 "2002-08-08T15:18:33Z")
That was an amazingly cool thing to do, **clayton**. Kudos.
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### Author:  [@KimKatt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KimKatt)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2002, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/46 "2002-08-08T15:32:12Z")
This story just made my day. Truly. Such a selfless act seems so rarely heard of anymore… **clayton\_e** , you done good.
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### Author:  [@Leifsmama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leifsmama)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2002, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/47 "2002-08-08T17:18:04Z")
Wow! Isn’t amazing where life can lead you?
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### Author:  [@Daoloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daoloth)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2002, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/48 "2002-08-08T22:25:20Z")
My writing class did something similar last year. Our teacher found a box of letters from a war vet in the Pacific at a garage sale (the owner of the house found them in the attic). The letters detailed his love to his fiancee (whom he was writing to), as well as comparisons between the paper and actual events. You might have read something to the effect of, “The papers make a big deal when the Japs fly over low, but it’s common here. There’s no need to worry.”
We got a day in the internet lab to see if we could find the guy’s address. Turned out he and his wife were both deceased by the '80s, and their last residence had been the house where the garage sale was at.
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### Author:  [@Girl\_Next\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Girl_Next_Door)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2002, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/49 "2002-08-09T01:39:45Z")
500 Good Karma points for **clayton-e**!
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### Author:  [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2002, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/50 "2002-08-09T16:32:36Z")
As I read your account, you did not open the sealed letter from his wife to him. Is this true? If so, then major kudos for respecting the privacy of people you, quite naturally, believed to have passed away(after hearing the story of an estate sale and the age of the letters I believe this to be a natural assumption). Even the thought of returning them to family members without reading them was enough to get you the “Nobility” merit badge.
Very cool.
Steven
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### Author:  [@NurseCarmen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NurseCarmen)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2002, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/51 "2002-08-09T17:09:43Z")
Hey, maybe if it does get published the people who bought the other stuff from the antique shop might read it, and forward thier purchases as well.
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### Author:  [@clayton\_e](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clayton_e)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2002, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/52 "2002-08-10T02:27:38Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mtgman \*
> \*\*As I read your account, you did not open the sealed letter from his wife to him. Is this true? \*\*
yeah. I didn’t open the letter, I’m not sure why, it just didn’t seem right to do so. A few of my friends and some of their parents and people who I mentioned the letters to that afternoon thought I should open it… But I just decided not to. Not really sure why.
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2002, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/53 "2002-08-10T13:41:35Z")
I just stumbled across this thread.
You freaking rule for doing this. Good job.
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### Author:  [@Profane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Profane)
#### Post date: [August 10, 2002, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/found-wwii-letters-from-a-vet-to-his-wife-found-the-couple-and-delivered-their-mail/122706/54 "2002-08-10T19:19:40Z")
Very, very cool thing to do clayton.
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