Letter illustration (Photo – PSC)
Los Angeles Times columnist Al Martinez chronicled Southern California life for 23 years and was awarded three team Pulitzer Prizes before his retirement in 2009 and death in 2015.
By News Desk
Throughout his 20 months of service during the Korean War, from 1950 to 1953, he served on the front lines and later was a regimental writer and war correspondent. During that time, he wrote letters nearly every day to his wife, Joanne.
On Thursday, Nov. 11, 2021 at 2:00 pm, some of these extraordinary and eloquent letters will be highlighted onsite at the Pasadena Senior Center and online on Zoom. The free event is presented by Sara Hodson, retired curator of literary manuscripts for the Huntington Library. The title of the presentation is taken from a line in one of the letters: “I Promise You I’ll Be Home.”
Members and nonmembers of the Pasadena Senior Center aged 50 and older are invited to participate, no matter their city of residency. To register for the onsite presentation or the Zoom presentation, visit pasadenaseniorcenter.org.
Seating will be limited for the onsite event due to COVID-19 protocols. Masks and social distancing will be required.
Al Martinez during the Korean War (Photo – PSC)
Martinez’s letters bring to life the experiences of a 21-year-old U.S. Marine with an innate talent for storytelling, who faced the brutality and dangers of the battlefield.
Below is an excerpt of a letter Martinez wrote to his wife on April 15, 1951, from the front lines in Korea:
“. . . I’m writing of a chipmunk scurrying suddenly through the leaves and bringing 40 men to a firing position, silent & listening . . . Of a flare lighting up the sky & of eyes staring into the blackness it leaves when it fades . . . I’m writing of nite and day, of life & of just existence & of death which is the inevitable for some who must fight a war . . . And I’m writing of men like myself, who love & watch & think, and who laugh at their misery because it holds a plot that no other writer has been able to top.”
Joanne Cinelli Martinez passed away in April of this year, not long after she authorized Sara Hodson to make presentations about the letters.
“He was a young man discovering his literary voice and writing style,” said Hodson. “Although he often was in mortal terror on the front lines, he still found a way to infuse humor into his letters home to his wife Joanne, sometimes adding quite lively pen and ink drawings at the end of letters that tied back to the content.”
For more information about the Nov. 11 presentation visit the Pasadena Senior Center website or call 626-795-4331.
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