Notes and Explanations
My grandfather, Grandpa "Andy," was a great fisherman. My brothers and I used to visit him in Vancouver, Washington. I remember him teaching us how to catch fish in Angle Lake, and the giant steelhead he caught on the Lewis River that was flopping around in the laundry tub on the back porch. He was the chaplain of the Veterans Hospital and remained active his entire life - earning his doctorate degree at age 82.
When I developed an interest in the history of the wars of the twentieth century, I rediscovered the man Henry W. Anderson as a soldier in the Great War and an Army chaplain in the Pacific during World War II. In 2012 I visited the locations in Paris where he stayed in 1918. It was while touring the Normandy coast the idea for The Juno Letters took seed. This was a labor of love and deep respect dedicated to the man known to most as just "Andy" - chaplain, grandfather, a great fisherman, and a powerful force in my life.
Dialect
The story takes place primarily in France and during some dialog I use French phrases or individual words. In some cases an English translation immediately follows.
Name Conventions
When using French proper names, I record the first instance with a written out salutation; subsequently I only use the abbreviation: M. - monsieur, Mme - madame, and Mlle - mademoiselle. Note that only the "M." uses a period after the letter, since the others contain the final letter of the abbreviation - a common form.
Corps d’Autoprotection franais [sic] is the name of the French auxiliary of the Gestapo. It was also known as the Carlingue. For convenience, I will refer to the various forms of the security organizations as the French Gestapo, and often just as the Gestapo. The Gestapo in The Juno Letters have French surnames, consistent with the Corps d’Autoprotection franais.
Organizational structures within the French police, the security police, and local governments were very complex and overlapping. I refer to these organizations collectively as the Police Nacionale.