Morale Boosters

Heroes Remember

Morale Boosters

Transcript

You don’t know how everybody felt when they got letters from home or from their girlfriends. Oh yes, they were real morale boosters, oh guaranteed. I think just the sake that the people back home are not forgetting them, you know, that type thing. I never had a chance for anyone forget me because I was writing so many letters. But most guys would probably write a letter a week or some of the fellas only would write probably a letter every two weeks. We had fellows over there that were married. They would always at least write their wives once a week, sometimes twice a week. But some of them didn’t want to get into other women. I mean I was single, I had no you know nothing to hold me back from writing to every woman in Canada if I had the time. But no, it was something they just used to write once to twice a week. I didn’t talk about war or anything to my parents. You tell them how I was and how I felt and about there was a few fellas that were in the same outfit to me which they knew, like you know type thing. If they were talking to his parents you know, or they could pass along the information, I heard from Charlie and this ones okay and that ones okay. And, but other than that they used to, I used to... all my girl friends that I used to write to too, I used to get on the average of four to five letters a week. But I wrote to girls, as a matter of fact I had two, well you could call them pen pals, I had pictures of them, but two of them were from the States. I wrote to one of my buddy’s; he went over to 3rd Battalion, but he was my buddy when we were in Petawawa and that, a fella from Stellarton, Nova Scotia. I used to write to his sister and then I had a girl in the air force I met through my sister. I had a sister who was in the air force also and I met her through her. And I used to write to her and I had two or three in Petawawa or Pembroke. So this is what, you know helped me to put in time.

Description

Mr. Rees discusses the importance of receiving and sending mail

Charlie Rees

Charles Rees was born in Lance Cove, Newfoundland on July 14, 1930. He first experienced the consequences of war at the age of 12, when he and the rest of his community were involved in rescuing the crew from two ships torpedoed nearby. While working in Toronto, Mr. Rees made the decision to enlist for service in the Korean War. He was sent overseas with the 1st Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment, where he served a one year tour of duty on the 38th Parallel. When he returned to Canada, he trained as a paratrooper. After leaving the service, he was a pressman in the printing trade. Mr. Rees joined both the Atlantic and Canadian Korean Veterans Associations.

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