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Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Writing a Letter (handwritten correspondence) (10/21/10)
Leaving on a Greyhound


June 28, 1968

(Envelope with “R_____” scribbled on it with note inside)


R______,
I’ve decided I’ve had enough of your beating me up, so I’m leaving you. You’ll find the kids in the base nursery. I know you’ll take good care of them. It’s only me that you beat up. I’ve tried everything I know to hang in there, especially for my kids. I spoke with the base chaplain and he advised me to go to marriage counseling. I told him no way would you go for that. I planned to take the kids with me but he said I’d be arrested for kidnapping, so that’s out. I‘ve never worked outside our home anyway, so how could I support four kids? I had an appointment, as you know, with the Judge Advocate’s office to apply for a divorce. Your trick with the German luger pointed at the side of my head forced me to cancel that. As I see my options, one is stay and seek a divorce, ending up with me dead and you in prison for life, our kids having no parents at all. Two, I take the kids and end up in prison for kidnapping. It’s a lose, lose situation for my kids.

You need help, R______. Since you’ve been home from ‘Nam, you’re totally different. You’re not the loving man that I married. You’re mean and abusive to me. I just can’t take it anymore. You said you would never let me have a divorce, that no one else would ever have me. That leaves me with my only option to survive: leave while you’re at work.

Take good care of the kids and may God forgive you for making me leave my whole world behind.

Signed________
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This article has been read 1408 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
Shann Hall-LochmannVanBennekom 
10/30/10
I hear about true stories lime this all of the time. You did an incredible of capturing the emotions of the MC.
Beth LaBuff 
11/01/10
:( ...so very heartbreaking. Many from that war were permanently altered.
Jan Ackerson
11/01/10
Very heartbreaking and real.

I have a hard time with a woman who would leave four children with an emotionally wounded man who had held a gun to her head.

The emotional content of the letter is raw and gripping.
Lollie Hofer 
11/02/10
So sad...you did a good job expressing her anguish. I deeply felt it.
Genia Gilbert
11/05/10
I didn't get much reading done last week, but just now saw this. It is well written, has in it harsh reality, heartbreaking honesty, and deep emotional pain. Great writing!