Print the complete address in plain block letters in the panel below, and your return address in the space provided. Use typewriter or dark ink. Write plainly. Very small writing is not suitable.

No.

(CENSOR'S STAMP)

John Hersey

(Sender's Name)

% U.S. Mil. Mission,

(Sender's address)

A.P.O. 193, N.Y.N.Y.,

1 January 1945

(Date)

Dearest Patch:

The dateline up there is the first time I've written 1945. The New Year seems a terribly important turning point, somehow -- especially when you are slightly (did I say slightly?) hung over. The ordinary high resolve into which a hangover throws you is fortified by the wish to make this the best year of all. This morning, therefore, I am in a pious mood. I will never drink again, that is certain. I may never smoke, as my mouth will go on tasting of cigarets at least through 1945 and perhaps to my dying day. I will go to bed every night at ten and get up at eight in the morning. I will work like a dog. I will write better. I will be a model father and a perfect husband. I may even take some exercise once in a while. I will read the best books, or write them. I will listen to good music. Jesus, I'll be a bore.

I wonder how you saw the New Year in. I wonder a little how I did. This much I know: I went to dinner with some very nice Canadians named Arnold and Eve Smith. Harriman, who is rather hot for Eve, was there; Eddy Gilmore of the AP, fat and happy, and his Russian wife; an English girl; a New Zealand girl; and me. The food was lovely and there was some kind of vodka cocktail, three or four wines topped with champagne, brandy with the coffee -- and we were off! We also went off to a huge party given by the British military mission, at which things began to get hazy. The British served two alternatives, a rum-and-lemon mixture and a wine-and-vodka mixture. I was determined to avoid the latter; but the two looked exactly alike to me and soon began to taste exactly alike. The party was fun and the first hours of the New Year seemed superior to the last hours of the old and I left the joint with two Englishmen who had a car but without the English girl or the New Zealand girl or whomever I was supposed to be gallant to.

Since then I have been sleeping, and since I awoke from sleep, good resolution has been boiling up in my brain. I may be a bore, but I sure will be good. I have reached this position of moral strength without even lying in bed in a brown suit. I can walk, I can talk, I can typewrite (painfully), I can drink tea and I can eat dry toast. That is, however, all. I will be so good you won't know me. Maybe you won't want to know me. Maybe I won't know you. Maybe I don't want you (much) right here and now. Maybe I am still drunk. That could be. That is a horrible possibility, seeing that this is 1945, the year of my spiritual re-birth.

Maybe I'd better sign off, and pick up again on January 2, 1945, when my good intentions will have taken effect, and when my grammar and typing will undoubtedly be better. But I did want to tell you that I LOVE YOU.