Editor’s Note: During the First World War, Pte Cecil Minary served in the CEF, beginning his military training at Camp Hughes prior to being shipped to England for additional training. He saw his first action in France soon after Canada’s involvement in the Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917. His great-great-niece Kendra Minary from Souris spent the COVID pandemic going through the original letters he wrote home from England and France prior to being KIA on Aug. 28, 1918. The Lewis gunner died on the battlefield after his crew was hit by a German artillery shell. The Stag’s website will share Kendra’s great-great-uncle’s letters with our viewers here to give you a peek at what a soldier was contemplating with pencil and paper while in the UK training or in France in a trench waiting for the next attack or counter-attack. Pte Minary’s letters are transcribed as they were written by Kendra, so this includes his spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes. Of note, from his letters home he rarely described his clashes with Fritz, instead preferring to enquire about life on the family farm in Nesbitt or what his family and friends were doing back in Manitoba. Unlike some some soldiers who would share their war stories in their always censored letters, Pte Minary had his own distinct writing style no matter if the letter was for his his dad, sister or a relatives. He also made the job of Army censors easier by not including war details which would be censored by being blacked out. That’s the reason why his letters are “somewhere in France” once he left England for the Western Front. Those original letters are stored at the Wawanesa Museum.