"The Letters of Peter Mitchell" is a story that was conceived more than forty years ago when a young soldier from Fort Dix did wander into New York City on a weekend pass and did meet another young soldier who was planning to spend a weekend with a woman who could have been mistaken for his mother or a sweet old aunt.  The picture that he saw before him was sad, if not pathetic.  That 'chance meeting' led the young soldier from Ft. Dix to carry the memory and expand upon it during his thirty month tour of duty in France. 

The story could be read as somewhat autobiographical.  There is a hand-knit mohair sweater in the author's cedar chest, only worn on special occasions.  But we must remember that this is a novel...a work of fiction.