Easy Company just returned from crossing the Bavarian Alps—spectacular, by the way—into the southern part of Germany. We came to a camp called Kaufering outside the town of Hurlach. I’d heard that these kinds of places existed, but I would not have believed that they contained such evil until I saw it with my own eyes. Kaufering had been a sick camp, victims of typhoid fever sent there to await their turn to die. We’d packed loads of medical materials ready to care for the people we found imprisoned there. But when we arrived, we found five hundred bodies instead. Stacked as if they were refuse in a rubbish pile rather than the fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters, wives they had been.

The Germans had killed them even as they knew they were losing the war.

Together with the townspeople, we buried the dead, wrapping bandages around our noses to withstand the stench.

I found the body of a man who reminded me of my father. About the same age. Similar hair and contours of the face. Gaunt, though, from starvation. I cried into my fist.

There was once a time when I would not admit to that. But inhumanity is what bred this horror. I will never again be afraid to show that I feel.

Captain Winters predicted a spectacular battle at the end of this. But it was not the Grand Finale, as he called it. That battle was an interior one—one that will last well beyond the war. In every decision I make from here on in, I am going to ask myself—is this the right thing to do? Because small decisions beget larger ones.

I’ve struggled with knowing what path my life should take, Margaret. But that lesson will serve me well no matter what choice I make.

Love, Tom

*  *  *

“There she is! The Statue of Liberty! God love it, she’s a sight for sore eyes.”

The troop ship—another Cunard Line beauty that had been requisitioned for war—carried the victors into New York Harbor. After Kaufering, the 101st had been sent to Zell am See and Kaprun in the Austrian Alps, training and awaiting transport to the Pacific theater. It had been disheartening, to say the least, that once one side of the world was saved, they were gearing up to travel to the other.

More time away from home.

But after several months of waiting, Japan, like Germany, had surrendered. The official ceremony had taken place on the deck of the USS Missouri, and Tom felt a tingle of pride on Margaret’s behalf that the battleship she’d worked on had been the site of the end of what was being called World War Two.