the letter

I was ecstatic to find Ted's letter in my mail box. Here is what it said:

Greetings

May I call you Margie?  As happened so often during the war that
influenced so many young lives, I barely got to know your uncle Jack,
and then he was gone.  I understand that you found my little item
about your uncle in Austin Goodrich's book .  I had written that item
hoping that someone, somewhere, who knew John Seaton, would see
it and would know that he was remembered and missed by his
colleagues.  While memories are sometimes faulty on some details,
and at 85 years mine is as fragile as any,  here is what I remember
about  John.

Like your uncle, I was a kid from the sagebrush country, but from
Oregon instead of Montana.  We talked a bit about that, and I had
to acknowledge that his winters were longer and colder than those
we had in the Central Oregon ranch coutnry where I grew up, which
was much colder and dryer than Portland and the Willamette Valley
where I had gone "away to college." Like John, I had attended a
state university and was required to take ROTC.  John  and I were
commissioned at Fort Benning, Ga. , after finishing our third year
of college in the Army.  We were sent to the 86th Division, then in
the pine woods of central Louisiana ,  and from there to various
army bases in California where we practiced beach landings with
navy and marine units in preparation for island battles in the Pacific.
We were suddenly pulled out of our South Pacific preparation and
sent to Europe to replace a division that had been destroyed in the
"Battle of the Bulge."  Fortunately for most of us, the worst of the
fighting in Europe was about over by the time we got there. 
Luedenscheid was a small town in the Rhur  where we suffered
some losses.  April 13, while we did not know it then, was only
about three weeks from the  end of the war in Europe. It must have
been particularly sad for the Seaton family to receive the news
about John and then a few days later to learn that the European
part of the war was over.   Our division left Europe and, after short
leaves at home, we were reassembled at an army base in Oklahoma
and then sent to the Philippines to invade Japan.   Fortunately, for
the 86th Division as well as for the people of Japan, the war ended
the way it did without an invasion, which would have killed at least
a million more Americans, and many millions of Japanese.
I would be most interested in hearing from you, how you came to
Oregon, and more about the Seaton family, of which I knew so little. 
I still miss that young lieutenant, your Great Uncle Jack.  
Sincerely Ted Goodwin

finding Ted

Immediately after finishing the Blackhawks Recollections, I emailed the publisher and asked for contact information for the author. Then I realized that they wouldn't just give out information! So I called them, and asked if they could pass on a message to Austin Goodrich, telling him that I am a family member of one of his fallen comrades from World War II. They said they would be happy to forward my information. As soon as I hung up the phone, I realized this could take a while, and I guess I'm too impatient! So I started googling Goodrich's name, and the Blackhawk's website came up again! He is a member of the board of the Blackhawk Association, and his email was listed next to his name! Wow, I was so excited by this point. I typed up an email explaining who I was, and how thankful I am for his book. I asked him if he knows Alfred Goodwin, and if so, could he please connect me with Goodwin? I told him that my Uncle Jack was mentioned in Goodwin's memoir, and that I have been searching for more information on Jack's military service.

I received an email from Goodrich the next day. The next day!!! In it he said he would be happy to connect me with Ted Goodwin. He actually copied the email to Goodwin, so in reality, I now had the email address of the man who said he knew John Seaton. I decided that I would wait only 2 days to hear from him, and after that I would email him directly.

While I waited, I googled. I found Alfred "Ted" Goodwin! But surely it couldn't be the same person, as this person was a senior judge for the US Court of Appeals 9th Circuit! Read here. Though when I read more, it did say that he served in World War II.

As it turns out, I didn't have to wait long. Ted replied to my email the next day, as he was nearly as eager to find me as I was him.