JAYHAWK REBOUNDS
Noe ll

September 12, 1944
Dear Fellow Jayhawkers:

Somehow this is the most difficult letter that I have ever attempted toe
write. Over a dozen times I have begun it and each time I have walked away from
my desk beesause words fail meg If feel such a void, has gone from me.
Your friend and mine ~ good, 01d honest “Teep", T. Pe lst Lt. 9th Marines)
was killed on Guam, July 21, 1944, And he feels closer to me
than at any moment thet I have known him. Across the miles that span Lawrence,
Kansas, and Guam, it seems so trivial, This thing we call death has brought him
closer to me at this very moment than he has been for years, The glories of his
life seem magnified a hundredfold.

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A Chinese philosopher once said, "Life seems so unreal at times that I do
not know whether I am living dreams or dreaming life." The life here and the
life hereafter seem so much a part of all of us that T. Pe's presence is manifest,
He will live forever in our hearts, What wore love can a wan have that he lay
down his life for his friend? But T. Pe, being the man that he was, would em
brace for his friends the thought of Lord Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar":

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And way there be no meaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.

Charles Frohman, the great playwright, facing death while standing on the
deck of the sinking Lusitania and watching women and children tding his place
in the lifeboats, said, “Death is life's greatest adventure.” —

Om August 17, Te Pe's sister-in-law called Mrs. Allen from Tulsa conveying
to us the sad news. I was in Boone, Iowa, conducting a coaching school for the
Iowa State High School Athletic Assceiation, and did not learn of T. P.'s death
until Sunday, August 20¢ Somehow I could not believe it, beeause I felt that
after T. Pe had been in Guadalemal, Bougainville - in fact, all of the tough

‘Marine engagements, that he would make it,

In T. Pe's letter to me on Jenuary 1, 1944, you Rebounders will recall that
he stated, “Thought you might like to know a little about our game with the Japs
on Bougainville. Well, everything was going fine until they got me and my boys
in a hot boxe I thought for a while they were going to call in the outfielders
to get us out. Fortunately for us, however, we got out before they had time,"

Te Pe was our outstanding pitcher in his senior year and his baseball terme
inology fit most aptly into this very difficult situationg fT. FP. continued, in
his January lst letter, by saying, “I have called it a game, Doc, and to me that
is just about how it seemed, The same is true for most of the boys that return.
The bad part of the whole war is these boys who have to give their lives to win.