This week we dived into the world of communication from the past and familiarized ourselves with not only how people communicated during war and day to day life but also what it looked like. We read through an article that explained how soldiers would communicate with their loved ones back home through V mail, telegram, and of course; letters. We talked about how heartbreaking it must have been for families to find out about the passing of their brothers, fathers, uncles, etc. We also discussed the government’s role in communication and how they censored it to show the war in a less gruesome light to those at home not fighting in the war. We wondered how civilians felt about the censorship and if they knew about it or not. This shows us how governments and higher authorities can try to sugar coat or blind regular civilians from the truth about a lot of matters and that we can often live in ignorance. One of my favorite parts of class this week was looking at old letters from Muhlenberg students who fought in the war. It was so cool to be able to physically touch the letters, read their handwriting and nick pick at the language they used. It was interesting to see what they chose to include in the letters sometime humorous jokes even through tough times, and the wishes they had for the person on the other side of the letter and for themselves. What spurs people to chose a certain type of communication to send to a person? Is it convenience? A time issue? A reason to show personality through personal handwriting? Flipping through the different colored papers with their flimsy textures was so strange but insightful at the same time.Overall it was so fascinating to see students like me at a completely different stand point in their life, i.e. fighting in a war be at the same school as me and engage in these extremely detailed, heartfelt letters that made you cry and laugh at the same time.
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