Farewell/Death Letters

Genre and Sub Genre: Superstition, Material

Language: English

Country where Item is from: United States of America

Informant Data: Originally from Bay Area, California, Jonathan Kong is a Dartmouth student veteran, ’18, and studies Economics. He served 6 years in the United States Navy assigned as a Combat Corpsman with Marine Corps Infantry. He has deployed three times and has conducted combat operations in Sangin, Afghanistan of Helmand Province. He has billets as an Assistant Leading Petty Officer, Senior Line Corpsman, Battalion Training Petty Officer, and Combat Trauma Management Instructor. He was awarded the Silver Star Medal for heroic actions against the enemy and risking one’s own life to save wounded Marines, as well as the Combat Action Ribbon, Afghanistan Campaign Medal, Fleet Marine Force device, and Enlisted Surface Warfare device.

Social/ Cultural Context: Jonathan was interviewed in his home at an off-campus house for Dartmouth student veterans. He has been at Dartmouth for one years and was able to speak about various different topics. I briefly explained the focus of our collection and simply allowed him to speak freely about topics he chose.

Item: Because of the high probability of death during wartime, troops often write farewell and death letters to their loved ones. They carry these letters with them or give them to close friends in order to send back to the dead service member’s loved ones in the event they are killed in combat. However, there is a superstition that writing such a letter can bring bad luck or get you killed.

Associated file: 

Transcript of Associated File:

I’m not really sure where it comes from, but yea… they say if you write a farewell letter you’re probably gonna get blown or killed. I durno… I think probably because they there’s this idea that if you’re writing, then you’re accepting that you’re probably gonna die or you’ve given up. So it’s sort of just bad luck. It might also be because everyone fuckin writes one. So everyone that dies, tends to have written one. So in reverse causal effect, it’s not that writing one gets you killed, it’s that people who are killed probably wrote one.

Informant’s Comments: I did write several farewell letters to my family and friends. I felt like it was worth it to at least say goodbye in case anything ever happened. It helps to be able to tidy things up when you lose someone.

Collector’s Comments: Informant did not show any of his letters. However, he did say he is still in possession of them and will occasionally read them to reminisce about those days where death seemed imminent. He said they help him to appreciate things much more.

Collector’s Name: Cole Cable

Tags/Keywords: Material Lore, superstitions