IN EARLY 1942, just months after Pearl Harbor, a young attorney from a small Indiana town joined the U.S. Army, determined to serve his country as war engulfed the globe. A year later, in 1943, a young music teacher from that same small town joined the American Red Cross, her mission to boost troop morale overseas.

Never did their paths cross during World War II, never did their duties - wildly different - overlap. But the two were united by the ethic of teamwork, sacrifice, determination, and courage, the same ethic that propelled millions of Americans in the early 1940s to adjust the course of their lives and vigorously defend freedom.

Bill Husselman served as a military police lieutenant with General George S. Patton's Third Army as it marched across northwest Europe. Mary Brandon was a Red Cross club worker who offered aid and comfort to U.S. Fifth Army troops fighting their way up Italy's boot. This book is a firsthand account of their wartime experiences, told through letters and photographs preserved by their families.

Narration stitches the letters together and puts them in historical context, showing how Bill and Mary were near or in the heart of action - as Allied forces fought at Anzio and Monte Cassino, rested on the Isle of Capri, liberated Rome, swept across France, prevailed at the Battle of the Bulge, crossed the Rhine, witnessed horrors at Buchenwald.

The letters flow chronologically, with Bill traveling to stateside bases to receive military training and Mary heading to Washington, D.C., for Red Cross instruction. The letters also chart Bill's and Mary's distinct overseas paths - from Great Britain to the western border of Czechoslovakia, from Casablanca to a sprawling complex Mussolini built in Rome.

Why read these, or for that matter any, wartime letters? Because they can instruct us on the perils of allowing democracy to fall prey to tyrants. Because they can show us how ordinary people such as Bill and Mary banded together to do the extraordinary at a critical moment in history.

The letters here address war's hardships and monotony. They speak of love for family and home. Bill's and Mary's stories are separate, important, and remarkable - and they meld into one story when the war ends.