◆ Part of Year in Kenya series · gabrielmahia.com · dearimmigrant.com

Start Here — All 30 Letters in Order

mydearsoldier.com

Thirty Letters to the Soldier I Was

A man writes to the soldier he was between 2012 and 2018 — from basic training at Fort Leonard Wood to the food pantry winter to the first car to the museum on the Mall. Thirty letters. Read in order.

Begin here

Letter 01: Before the Uniform →

How to read this

Each letter is addressed to the soldier I was. They are written from here — Virginia, 2026 — back to the years between enlistment and discharge. They are not a memoir. They are correspondence across time.

Start at Letter 01. Follow the feed forward. New letters publish on the first of each month.

Part of the Year in Kenya series

These letters were written from Nairobi between April 2025 and April 2026 — while waiting on a spousal visa — and from Virginia after returning. They sit alongside essays on power and institutions at gabrielmahia.com and letters to immigrants at dearimmigrant.com.

Full series index →

mydearsoldier.com · Letters from soldiers who crossed