Letter from Jake Mansfield to his family:

Dear Mother and Dad:

Don't you worry about me and don't feel sorry for me. I'll be all right. I'm off to help in the most important job a fellow ever had to do. I'm going out to defend America. I don't mean the America we studied in Geography books and political science texts. That isn't the America I am going to defend. America is for me a great neck. It is a million great necks. America is our temple; it is our favorite newspaper; the home we live in, our quiet street, the back yard, it is even the crab grass in the lawn.

I don't want anybody to touch America. I don't want anybody to tell me that Great Neck isn't mine anymore. I don't want to see the temple doors barred against me. I don't want our streets touched.

I'm glad I'm going. I'll go wherever they send me and I'll go most willingly. I didn't even mind being sent thousands of miles across the seas. I would a million times rather fight the enemy on his own soil than have to defend myself against him on my own. As long as I have anything so say about it you will never hear what an enemy bomb sounds like and you will never see what enemy tanks look like. We''ll keep our landscapes clear and quiet.

The men who know say this is a big war, but I have my own private way of looking at it. I see it is as quite a little war. It is no bigger than my heart. It takes in you, my mother and dad, and brother, the home we once lived in, my friends and the neighbors next door. That's not a big war, yet maybe it is at that. Maybe it's really bigger than the biggest country and the widest ocean. I guess what I'm actually fighting for is for love, for my parents, for my brotherhood, for the friendly light shining in the front room window. This is my America.

So don't you sit aroung crying and grieving for me. Keep a grin on your face and a song in your heart for America. Just remember that as long as I'm thousands of miles away, so is the enemy. This is his back doorstep I'm on. He's not on yours, which is exactly the way I intend to keep it. So long folks, I'll be back soon as I can. May God bring me back to you in victory and in health speedily.

I have received only two letters from home since I arrived overseas, so keep my mail coming. Maybe I will get them soon. Good-bye and answer soon.

Love, your soon, Jake.