Strasbourg, France March 11, 1945
Anna Marie smiled as a clerk handed her a letter. The writing was obvious. It was her brother. He was still at the front but he found time to write at least a few lines twice a week to her. The last one had complained about the food and mud, but the knitted wool cap he had acquired from a GI who was looking for something that tasted better than a D ration had served him well. He always had a way with words that made her smile and giggle.
The clerk coughed ever so softly. There was another letter for her. She did not recognize the writing as she took the American victory mail envelope. She pushed it into the pocket of her long sweater and forgot about it as she went back to work sorting through the tremendous amount of paperwork that the French rail network generated as it supplied two Allied Army Groups. There was a challenge in getting a switching yard properly repaired in Metz which occupied several dozen messages that she needed to sort out for the engineers and technical experts. Another problem was cropping up in the repair yards as the engines were being run hard and the Allied bombing campaign the previous spring and summer had destroyed any slack in the system. A marshalling yard had backed up enough to keep ten divisions in supply over a fifty mile advance. That, as the Americans were fond of saying, needed to be un-fubared immediately. They had a way with words as well that made her grimace at their simple truths.
As she made her way home that evening, her hand brushed against the envelope. It made her curious so when she found some light, she carefully opened the envelope and found that it was written in school boy French asking if she remembered him as he was thinking about her... The name meant nothing until she realized that this was the American lieutenant that had been fighting with her brother. She smiled. She had not thought about him in months but now she just might.