We Are Going to Be Lucky

A World War II Love Story in Letters

Elizabeth L. Fox

• Publisher: Excelsior Editions
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781438470580
• eBook ISBN: 9781438470597
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

We Are Going to Be Lucky tells the story of a first-generation Jewish American couple separated by war, captured in their own words. Lenny and Diana Miller were married just one year before America entered World War II. Deeply committed to social justice and bonded by love, both vowed to write to one another daily after Lenny enlisted in 1943. As Lenny made his way through basic training in Mississippi to the beaches of Normandy and eventually to the Battle of the Bulge, Diana struggled financially, giving up her job as a machinist to become a mother. Their contributions to the war effort—Lenny's crucial missions as an Army scout and Diana's work in the Brooklyn Navy Yard—are the backdrop to their daily correspondence, including insightful discussions of democracy, politics, and economic hardship. Faced with grueling conditions overseas, Lenny managed to preserve every letter his wife sent, mailing them back to her for safekeeping. The couple's extraordinary letters, preserved in their entirety, reveal and reflect the excruciating personal sacrifices endured by both soldiers at war and their young families back home. After decades of gathering dust, their words have been carefully transcribed and thoughtfully edited and annotated by Elizabeth L. Fox, Lenny and Diana's daughter.

Part I

Training

1

Induction

CAMP UPTON, YAPHANK, SUFFOLK COUNTY, LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

MAY 7–20, 1943

May 7, Aboard Train

Dearest,

Have finally got going — had lunch at Penn. Station — We are on a train that must have been used at Lincoln’s inaugural but Max & I have good seats.

Lenny

May 7, 9:30 P.M.

Dear Diana,

There’s every likelihood that our group will be shipped out at once — destination, of course, unknown. We have been told that it’s “48 or 72” hours, & no visitors or receipt of letters. So far, so good —

Lenny

May 8, 1943, Camp Upton1

Dearest darling wife,

I got the “Hook” this afternoon — my double dose of anti-typhoid & anti-tetanus injections & my right arm & shoulder are rather sore.

Darling — are you well? Honestly, are you in good spirits? If it relieves your feelings go right ahead & cry once in a while — don’t go on accumulating it in yourself ’til something like a tooth shoots your nerves to pieces.

My barracks are two story-cream-painted wooden structures. I’ve a cot with a mattress. But no sheets or pillowcases — they’re a little short, a few men had no cots, so I was satisfied with what I had. The one nuisance is the time (hours) wasted between doing things — the things themselves aren’t bad. Yesterday we were received in a big hall — fed & given 3 exams. Today we used up the morning being “classified.” I think I’m headed for my infantry!!! I am classified “semiskilled”! Later we got 2,500 lbs of uniform, fatigue clothing, equipment, etc. The distribution of some 75–100 articles, in all sizes, to about 1,000 guys in one day is really well organized — very praiseworthy.

The Negro troops were segregated from us as soon as we got off the train, a miserable scene, & they’ve been kept apart, even to separate benches at the theater where we saw the films.

Lenny

May 9, Upton

Hello, dearest,

Right now your husband is sitting in a cool breeze in the checkered shade of a pine grove, midst fragrant pine needles and fluttering white butterflies, under a clear blue sky. The segregated Negro troops are playing baseball off on the far left. Down the company street a few squads are being drilled. Most of the fellows must be parading hundreds of miles to nowhere. I’m reclining at ease, having just showered & I am writing (my greatest pleasure) to my dove.

Well, personally, I think we should have Sunday afternoon off. This post seems to act on the “Satan finds mischief for idle hands” theory & keeps us going even if there is nothing to do. Fourteen of us including me were marched to camp prison, where we were given picks and shovels, with the army’s usual lack of reason, & led out to the woods. We were then initiated into the mystery of road building, to wit. You swing a pick to break up hard ground (nary an earthworm or an ant did we turn up) barren, hard-packed sand, then shovel it level to 4 inches deep, and square the edges. Tomorrow the hole will be filled with flat stones & cement.

The guys all cooperated in fine spirit. It was necessary, tho, to combat the “WPA” theory of doing it leisurely & to get them to hustle. When they got the idea that in this job & all our work we are digging “a road to Berlin,” as one said, all went well.

What’s privacy anyhow? We are called “privates” but we sleep 50–72 in a room, our bags and clothes are all unsealed, our baths & toilets are public — no privacy anywhere. Our phones are not private either, and only English may be spoken.

Beloved, I wear your name all the time. My brass identification disk — 2 of ’em I wear bears my name & ASN2, & your name & address, & the letter H for Hebrew.3

Lenny

May 9

Dearest Lenny,

I’m so happy to have received the Special Delivery from you yesterday and the phone call today. You can understand I was disappointed not to have been able to speak to you myself darling but I was glad to hear you are OK. Love, I am writing this letter but I cannot mail it until I have an address. I hope that will be soon.

Your,
Diana

May 9

Sweetheart,

I’m stuck with KP for the night shift (6–12). This afternoon’s task I’d rather forget. See Sinclair’s “Jungle” for Jurgis Rudkis’s experiences in the fertilizer plant. As one of our detail said, after 3 hours shoulder deep in the sewage settling bed, “I don’t want to look at a piece of s—t again.” I don’t mind if it’s really necessary but I know this wasn’t.

Lenny

May 10

Sweetheart,

Since you say you cannot receive any mail, I am keeping the letter until I get an address from you. Lenny, darling, my spirits are good. As a matter of fact I am surprised at myself. I am reacting much better than I thought I would. As you have said many times — we can never really be apart even though there is distance between us. Only tonight when I received all those letters from you did I cry a little.

Beloved, I keep a date with you morning, evening, and all during the day. I look at your beautiful, smiling picture and know how lucky I am to have you as my own.

Diana

May 11

Dearest,

It was “bitchy,” after a hard afternoon, to go on evening duty. Our group of 20 made some 3,000 sandwiches for today’s shipment & packed them. Then we had a late arrival, at 11:25 of a new group of rookies to feed & wash dishes, tables, floors, etc.

Four guys from our barrack were “shipped out” today to the general envy; well, here’s hoping.

Today I did absolutely nothing to earn my $1.66-a-day pay, and I’m very annoyed at it. That’s the major reason why I’d like to be shipped — they just fritter away the time here. At the telephone center where several score were waiting to put through phone calls it is easy to sit a couple of hours with no questions asked.

Are you settled, dearest, as regards to bed & bureau?4

Beloved, today, with your letter, I have a close two-way conversation with you. I’m glad you are in good spirits — while I hope you won’t cry too much or cry at all. I still repeat I don’t want you repressing your emotions to the breaking point. Honestly, dearest beloved, I am (in spite of my irritation at wasting time) very content at being here.

I would only be more content if I were tonight put behind my favorite — the machine gun & told to cross over to Dunkirk & Calais. Darling beloved, you know my two passions are the struggle for freedom and historical research, and my love for my mate is the catalyst which makes both possible to me. With a soldier’s wife like you at home, & the army job now mine, there’s no guy in Upton as happy or with a life so full.

Lenny

May 11

Dearest Lenny,

It’s hard when today is Tuesday to read a letter written on Sunday because I feel that by now there must be much more news. Maybe you have even left Upton, well, I’ll have to learn to be patient and I am learning.

Diana

May 12, 8:30 A.M.

Dina,

5 days have passed — the longest “separation,” so-called, since before our marriage. Except for the “detail” work, this place is like a dude ranch. There’s no real war effort. What opportunities for training & morale building are going to waste — can’t wait to be shipped.

Lenny

May 12

Dearest Beloved, Lenny

I am sitting down to do the thing I look forward to all day — write to my beloved. The best part of every day, my sweetheart, is when I read your letter and write to you. I wrote and mailed a short letter earlier — this again I shall keep ’till I have an address.

My days are very much routine — I work during the day and spend my evenings fruitfully as always.

Lenny, I know I do not have to write you a “pep-up” letter but it seems that a number of very unpleasant tasks have come your way. Darling, whenever I feel so tired on my job that I want to sit down and rest or whenever I find it very hard to get up at 6 A.M. every morning, I think of how much I hate Hitler and Fascism and how hard I want to work to destroy it so that I can live with my husband again and together we can raise a family in a free America. So darling, every time you have an unpleasant job even if it is an unnecessary one — it is a means to an end — it is part of your fight to destroy the horror and mi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface—From Letters to a Book
• Introduction
• Part I—Training
• Part II—Overseas
• Part III—Recovery
• Epilogue—Life after the War, 1946–1994
• Appendix—Names that Appear in the Letters
• Further Resources
• About the Editor
• Index
• Back Cover