The Plot

In the fall of 1941 Margaret Murphy was enjoying life as a nineteen year old college student, surrounded by her best friends, with dreams of becoming a journalist. Then Pearl Harbor was bombed. Despite her best efforts she was forced by her parents to come back to the safety of her small hometown, even though that town was in the middle of nowhere Nebraska far from the fighting.

Women were called on to support the war effort in many ways. Twenty year old women that looked like Margaret usually ended up as USO girls. Instead she got a job at a POW camp for German prisoners.  After she loses someone very close to her to a German bomb, she participates in a morale boosting letter exchange with soldiers hoping that will help her morale as well. Whether at the prison or through the mail she watches as each soldier struggles with the horrors of war. Each soldier believes they are coming back to her at the end of the war. 

Margaret relies heavily on her two best friends as they plan for their life at the end of conflict and she ultimately, with their unwavering support,  makes the decision on who, or what, comes next. 

Inspired by true events, Behind the Wire includes the actual letters of soldiers serving around the globe that were written to my grandmother.

Intelligent. Beautiful. Funny. Incredibly private. My grandmother. 

I’m so grateful she saved all of these letters, the memorabilia, and wrote that one journal article describing her experience at the Camp Scottsbluff.

I wish she’d told her story when she was alive instead of squirreling it away in an abandoned suitcase only to be discovered after her death. 

I’d give anything just to have one more conversation with her. 

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