A Packet Of Letters (1988) By Walter Feldman

The author dedicated the book to "all the self-sacrificing and heroic mothers of World War II."

A Packet of Letters, Feldman looks back at some of his experiences as a soldier. He describes himself as "a frightened kid, far away from home for the first time and having experiences for which, naturally, there was no preparation." Eventually, Feldman did find himself under enemy fire, most notably at the Battle of Ardennes, or as it is more commonly known, the Battle of the Bulge. Feldman remembers...

On that grey winter afternoon, I had come under heavy enemy machine gun fire and was pinned down at the base of a tree. The ‘burp’ was so rapid that I had difficulty in determining its direction. Mortar shells were lobbed in, and their dirty explosions made a filthy mess of the white snow. One of the shells touched the small branches of my tree, burst into an angry orange flame, and umbrellared down on me. Chunks of shrapnel slammed into my lower back, and I momentarily blacked out. The medics had trouble getting to me because of all the small arms fire and the mortars. Getting me back to the company, battalion and regimental aid stations was a gruesome adventure: abandoned on the stretcher while strapped down on the hood of a jeep during heavy artillery bombardment, mistaken for a German soldier at the temporary aid station, missing the airplane that was to have flown me back to the U.S...

Fieldman, who served in WWII in 1990, founded Ziggurat Press, which prints small-edition handmade books. He tells about one based on a letter he received while in the trenches. His mother, he said, had been completely illiterate, but she learned to write English so she could send him comfort from home. He made a printing plate of her handwriting and created a book called “A Packet of Letters.” He was clearly proud that copies of this book honoring his mother are in the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Spiral-bound at the top in an envelope-fold cloth portfolio.

Signed by the author