A rare letter from Gen. George Patton to a mother who lost her son in World War II has surfaced and is fetching a high price.
The letter dated Jan. 12, 1944, was written to Viola Reichstein, whose son died in September 1943 after stepping on a landmine in Italy. The correspondence came after Reichstein’s desperate attempts to find out the fate of her son, Pvt. Sam Reichstein, according to the Daily Mail.
“It is perfectly futile to try to comfort anyone for the loss of a son, but I do think that you should be proud to be the mother of one of our heroes who gave his life in the defense of his country,” Patton wrote.
“I can never look on one of our wounded soldiers or on the corpses of one of our men without my eyes filling with tears and my throat choking up, but we should not, as I often say, regret that such men have died, rather we should thank God that men like that have lived,” he added.
Sam Reichstein, who hailed from the small town of Lititz, Pennsylvania, was the son of Viola and Ulysses Reichstein and began serving in the military in March 1941. The letter was sent just months before Patton assumed command of the Third Army in June 1944.
A collection of Sam Reichstein’s items from the war, including the letter, his dog tags, WWII Victory and Defense medals, his Purple Heart, and other items, is being sold online by memorabilia site Moments in Time for $75,000 on a first-come, first-serve basis.
