A portion of a love letter penned by a Canadian soldier during the Korean War has made its way home – 63 years after it first started the journey overseas.
Bill Awalt told CTV Atlantic that he was serving as a combat engineer in the Korean War when he nearly lost his leg during an attack in 1953.
The next thing Awalt remembers was waking up in Japan, in a hospital in run by the British Commonwealth.
That’s where he wrote the letter to his wife and family while recovering in a hospital.
While the actual letter is still missing, the letter's envelope recently made it to his family in Halifax.
"I've heard of slow mail before," the decorated war veteran told CTV Atlantic. "But… 63 years!"
Canada Post employees found the decades-old envelope in the regular mail stream a short time ago, and contacted Veterans Affairs in the hopes of tracking down the rightful owner.
His family believes the letter may have been removed by military officials, who were closely monitoring overseas correspondence at the time.
"Maybe he put something in it that he shouldn’t have put in it,” his former wife Dawn Awalt said.
Awalt's daughter, Sherri, said she's curious about what was actually written in the letter – but she believes she's deciphered a series of code letters that were written on the back of the envelop.
"'Sealed with an extra special kiss from me to you,' and the rest was ‘Miss everyone, love Dad,’ I think it was," Sherri Awalt said.
While the original letter remains missing, 86-year-old Awalt has plenty of memories from his time in the military to reflect upon.
Later in his career, Awalt was a member of the United Nations peacekeeping mission that won a Nobel Peace Prize for its work in Egypt.
"He was no sooner home and he was planning to go somewhere else," Dawn Awalt said. "He always wanted to go somewhere else."
With a report from CTV Atlantic's Suzette Belliveau
