Today’s letter captures a crucial point about war & it's end, what is left behind when the guns fall silent. In 1918, US soldier Frank Striker wrote of an encounter with a French civilian.

“I as speaking to an old Frenchman this morning. He is about 60 years old. He pointed to a few standing walls and said it was his home.”

There is no drama in the sentence. No anger. Just fact. And that is what makes it so powerful. By the time US troops arrived in France in large numbers, vast areas had already been fought over repeatedly.

Villages had been reduced to rubble, farms erased, lives stripped back to the barest outline. For civilians who survived either occupation or displacement, they had to pick up what was left & try to start again. Some towns were rebuilt, many villages were beyond repair.

Letters like Striker’s remind us that the war did not belong only to those in uniform. It belonged to everyone who remained, standing among ruins, pointing to walls & calling them home. At SGWT, we tell the human cost of war, soldier & civilian alike.