Dear Gen. Pershing: A letter from the war pigeon Cher Ami to the general who gave her a medal
A hand came down and pulled me out of the cage. I tried to get free but there was no way to fight the human and his grip on me. He put a message in the metal carrier strapped to my foot, and he threw me up into the air. Everything was chaos... I flew as high up in the sky as I could manage and started circling to understand where I was and where I was going. But suddenly I was surrounded by swishing sounds and things lying by everywhere and then there was pain, unbearable pain. I lost control over my body and quickly fell down into the trees again, what had just happened?
Dear General John J. Pershing,
I am writing this letter to you since I feel the need to tell my own story. Even though you heard it before. Even though you know what happened that day in October 1918, in the Argonne forest, where you claim that I became a hero. I need to be the one telling it to you and you need to be the one who listens. You see General, you all seemed to believe that my life was for you to decide. That I was just like a version of the radio. But I breathe. My heart beats. The metal carrier around my leg feels cold at night and warm during the day. I get scared. I get stressed. I feel comfort in the sun and happiness when dipping my head in the water. No machine can feel what I feel. I have agency. I have life. Now listen to my witness.
I was taken across the English Channel into France at the time when the bars on the cages start to feel damp in the evening and the leaves on the trees feel rough and change colour. Three others inhabited my cage, and there were at least 20 cages on the truck that carried us. For each passing day, we moved further and further away from the ocean.
Once a day, an army messenger came to take three or four of us out on a mission. Some days, they all came lying back. Some days only one or two returned. hose who returned came tired, hungry and thirsty but had to wait while being checked for carried messages before given water and corn. The day before I became a hero had been long with extensive travel, trapped in a cage with two others like me. Our cage was fastened on the back of a man and carried through the landscape, first at a slow and soothing pace, but later in a running, desperate and frightened manner. You see, General, to be in a cage on the back of a man while he is running for his life is a disorienting experience. You are both on the ground and in the air but without the possibility to use your wings. It is chaos, and there is no way to control your movement. You truly need to fight for the grip of your feet and make sure your wings don’t get hurt. It is an exhausting job and it kept on until we reached the forest…
A hand came down and pulled me out of the cage. I tried to get free but there was no way to fight the human and his grip on me. He put a message in the metal carrier strapped to my foot, and he threw me up into the air. Everything was chaos… I flew as high up in the sky as I could manage and started circling to understand where I was and where I was going. The wind under my wings, the sun in the sky, suddenly I just knew where I had to go. Where the nest was placed. I felt comforted, all I had to do now was to fly! But suddenly I was surrounded by swishing sounds and things lying by everywhere and then there was pain, unbearable pain. I lost control over my body and quickly fell down into the trees again, what had just happened?
General, I didn’t understand it then but I had of course been hit by bullets. I had a hole in my chest, one of my feet was hanging by a tendon and I lost sight in one eye. This was explained to me during the ceremony where I was given a medal for bravery. I managed to fly the entire way back to my nest and almost died there, on the floor. Perhaps I should be thankful for the operations and the wooden leg that the men carved for me, that they kept me alive. But if the bullet had hit the other leg and the message I carried had been lost, I do not think you would have tried with such an effort to save my life. You yourself wouldn’t have personally sent me off on a first class travel back to America, and I wouldn’t have stayed alive another year. My life depended on that message, and my life was destroyed because of that message.
Sincerely, the name that you have given me, Cher Ami.
Author: EvaMarie Lindahl. SOURCE…
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