Forgotten Soldiers from Our Forgotten War: Letters from Korea from 1951 - 1953

Included in FORGOTTEN SOLDIERS FROM OUR FORGOTTEN WAR are 30 letters written and sent between May 1951 and May 1953. Twenty-Eight of them were sent to newlyweds Frank and Mary Gossett where they lived in New York's Washington Heights. Two of them were sent to army soldier CPL Edward F. (Eddie) Hines somewhere in Korea. Nine men and women, between the ages of 16 and 22, sent these letters. They called themselves the "gang" in their letters, but they were just young people dealing with the uncertainty of a country at war and knowing they may pay the price with their lives and sanity. These letters and a few more were kept in a tin canister in Frank Gossett's closet for over 60 years. These letters are a testament to his earnest efforts and struggles and those of his family and friends at a very troubling time in our country.

Frank Farrell, the first time author of Forgotten Soldiers From Our Forgotten War, has spent 40 years as an actor and director in live theatrical productions on both coasts but mostly in Chicago, IL, where he has lived since 1979. He started five theatre companies during those years and two of them, Theatre-Hikes in Chicago, with a second branch in Colorado, and the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company in Western Michigan are still operating. He has appeared in several film and TV productions and has directed several short films, which are all available to view on YouTube. As an actor he most recently appeared as Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol with Citadel Theatre in Lake Forest, IL. In the Chicago area he has acted with the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Steppenwolf Theater, Court Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Oak Park Festival Theatre, Victory Gardens Theater, Equity Library Theater of Chicago and Theatre-Hikes. He received four Joseph Jefferson Citation Nominations in Chicago for his acting in The Singing Bone and The Caucasian Chalk Circle with Paul Sills’ Story Theater, for the title role in Richard II and for the role of Charley in the musical Merrily We Roll Along. His play adaptations include Songs of the Pogo, George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, The Borribles, Bambi, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, Rascal, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and H. G. Wells’ The Wonderful Visit.