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Letters Home is one of those books that defines the American mood of the time. Here we have the promise of the best and the brightest in Alan Nichols --- barely out of his teens, a college sophomore, handsome, intelligent, articulate --- off to a great adventure. As exposure to the world of war changes him, there is a parallel change in America. With his death, at age 21, the age of American innocence also ends as we plunge into the hedonism of the 1920's.

The letters of Nichols, his family and friends, are a mirror of an impossibly naive and innocent America during the Great War.

The letters are also a great source of information on the early days of flying. As a member of the Lafayette Flying Corps he provides us with a wealth of detail on one on one aerial combat, training techniques, and the daily life of those early flyers.

Letters Home is an intimate look at ourselves --- a rich and revealing portrait.

CONTENTS Endings Taking Leave American Field Service At the Front To Fly The Lafayette Flying Corps Chasse" Pilot Miscellaneous Details My Uncle Selection of Letters Photographs

It seems so very long ago. They're all dead now. Even Shirley. She was younger and really wasn't part of their crowd. Four or five years is such a big difference in age when you're eighteen or twenty. So long ago, yet only yesterday, really, and so easily forgotten.

But Shirley's little boy didn't forget. He always had the certificate on his wall. It hangs on the wall in his room still. Only now it is beautifully mounted and expensively framed, but not when he was little. Then it was in a cheap dime store holder. And the medal, he can't remember when he didn't have the medal. It's big, about four inches in diameter, heavy, and bronze and it starts by saying "To Commemorate Your Supreme Sacrifice..." The medal is still in his room, on the table, near the certificate...

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