When my Grandfather Gough enlisted to fight and left his home outport of Elliston, Newfoundland in WW 1, he was a innocent boy.
By the end of WW 1 he was a shattered man, who had lost the main illusions of his life. Yet, he managed to write brave letters from the front; letters that reflected his life and times in such a way that I want what he said to be available for free, for us all - so we may all avoid war in all times forever.
My grandfather never glorified war to me, he warned me against it, told me to avoid fighting for belief; he regretted the killing he did, mourned those he'd shot & bayoneted, and was straight-ahead honest about his life-long opinion that to kill is wrong - period.
I write of his war in other books, in this one it's time to share with the world what he wrote in his period of learning. I ask to remember, as you read them, the time in which he lived, & to consider the falsehoods that were told him in order to have him fight. Those were terrible times of a war that could have been avoided.
