Middle East Born February 5 1962

In their own words: Local soldiers' letters from two wars reflect themes of ...

Gen. Douglas MacArthur had never met Pvt. Foster Sisson or Army Sgt. Gabriel De Roo when he delivered that poignant description of the American soldier’s duty, honor and heroism to West Point cadets.

Sisson had been dead nearly 100 years; De Roo wouldn’t be born for another 19.

De Roo, a Paw Paw native, and Sisson, from Hastings, served on battlefields separated by cause, continents and more than 140 years. But the letters preserved by the families of Sisson, a Union soldier in the Civil War, and De Roo, an Army enlistee deployed twice to Iraq, reflect shared themes of faith and humanity that lose nothing in the translation of time.

Both men enlisted.

Both died in battle.

Americans remember the sacrifices of those who died in military service. But unlike the speeches and ceremonies that will mark Memorial Day on Monday, the stories of Sisson and De Roo are best told from the letters they wrote home to the people who loved them as husbands, sons and fathers and grieved their deaths as American heroes.

Ready to defend

Sisson’s early letters from boot camp describe bland military meals and advise to his wife on managing the family farm.

But as the Civil War intensified, the letters he penned while armaments screamed overhead revealed an increasingly heavy heart and loneliness for his wife and three children. Yet in the midst of America’s bloodiest war, enduring hunger and filth, he kept to his oath to protect the Union.

“ Don’t let Little Clarry forget where I be ,” Sisson wrote to his wife, Sarah, referring to their 3-year-old daughter. “ I am afraid she will forget all about me before I get back. ”

De Roo also longed for news from home and offered assurance he would remain safe in Iraq.

“ I miss all of you very much ,” De Roo wrote as he began basic training in early 2003. “ Please feel free to write if you all get an opportunity; it would be nice to hear about what’s going on back home. ... Please don’t worry about me, I’ll be all right. ”

As his basic training progressed, it wasn’t respite from physical exertion De Roo sought.

“ Pray that I live as a godly example to those around me and that I give 100 percent all the time ,” he wrote to his parents, later adding, “Send a family picture or two if you have a chance.