Feb 15, 2015

Thu, Feb 15, 1945: censor

"The only exam I have is that sometimes the variety of subjects we have to write about over here gets in a well worn rut and it darn hard to get out because the censor sometimes cut out that which is written about the military side and as over here there is very little outside the military it is hard job sometimes to guess just how close you can get into the military without having your letter thrown back at you or cut to pieces like a paper in the hands of a crazy woman with a pair of scissors which is all that keeps from giveing you  a real story. One that if it were in the movie would make most people say sounds like a lot of B.S. to me."

-- Letter from Joyce Sooter to my father (his cousin), Boulder, Colo., Thursday, February 15, 1945.  Joyce, a private in the army, was in a hospital in Leyte, Philippines, suffering from amoebic dysentery and schistosomiasis. His letter makes no reference to any of that, presumably due to concerns about censors.  He had participated in the U.S. assault on New Guinea and then of the Philippines.

No comments:

Post a Comment