My grandfather was in the 35th Tank Battalion in Patton's 4th Armored Division in Europe and after he passed we were cleaning out his house and on a top shelf way back in the back of a closet I found a box that had probably been there since they moved into the house in 1948. Once I got all the dust and debris off of it and opened it up, it contained all of the letters, telegraphs, etc. that he had sent to the family and everything they had sent him. It had all of his draft information and discharge paperwork and different arm patches from the war.
I went through all of them and put them in chronological order and filled up 5 plastic picture boxes. I hope to one day be able to go through and read all of them, but the handwriting and spelling are very different from today making them had to read. My aunt wanted to throw the "junk" away, but I took them and will keep them to pass down to my children who grew up and were very close to their great grandfather. My oldest son has all of his military medals including his purple heart and my younger son has his dress uniform and patches. My oldest son when he was in college, had the 4th Armored Division tattooed on his back with my grandfathers initials under it.