“But what about the wounds you can’t see?”
That’s what U.S. Army Private Al Puntasecca asked in a letter to his family before returning home from the Korean War in 1953. The struggle of readjusting to civilian life is not a new topic, but it’s as timely and as important as ever, which is why it’s the premise for a new exhibit at UA Little Rock’s Ottenheimer Library.
War Comes Home: The Legacy features letters between American soldiers and their loved ones as they process and come to terms with the effects of war. The letters span from Civil War era to World War II to more current combat in the Middle East.
Although most people think that they are war conscious, are they really? So far removed from the battle fronts, can they be? … You’d have to see the wounded streaming back from the front after a battle … above all, to see the light go out of men’s eyes. Young men shaking from nervous exhaustion and crying like babies. When I was in the States, war was far away, unreal. I had read, I had seen pictures, but now I know.
– Major Oscar Mitchell, U.S. Army Air Corps, WWII, 1944
The exhibit is curated by Andrew Carroll and is based on a collection titled the Center for American War Letters as a partnership between Cal Humanities, the California State Library and Exhibit Envoy.
“War Comes Home: The Legacy” is on display through March 10. Library hours are 7:30-12:30 a.m. Monday –Thursday, 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, and 1 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Sunday.
For more information, click here or call (501) 569-8018.