Letter from Wayne to His Folks
7/1/1918
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An American soldier named Wayne, serving in France during World War I, sent this letter to his “folks.” It exposes a great deal about his personal experience and the larger conflict in which he was a participant—from machine guns to rations; from the Red Cross to the Marines; from the front lines to the trenches; from illness to death. He offered a detailed eyewitness description of war and its atrocities, using language reflective of the time and conflict, including referring to German soldiers as “Huns” and a single German soldier as “Fritz.”
Text adapted from “Teaching Difficult Topics with Primary Sources” in the November/December 2011 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education.
Text adapted from “Teaching Difficult Topics with Primary Sources” in the November/December 2011 National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) publication Social Education.
This primary source comes from the Records of the American Expeditionary Forces (World War I).
National Archives Identifier: 6050582
Full Citation: Letter from Wayne to Folks; 7/1/1918; 3d Bn Replacements & Casualties June 18, 1918 Index Sheet 202 - 12.3; Records of Divisions, 1917 - 1920; Records of the American Expeditionary Forces (World War I), Record Group 120; National Archives at College Park, College Park, MD. [Online Version, https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/wayne-to-folks, September 17, 2024]Activities that use this document
- New Technology in World War I
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