U.S. woman writes soldiers through 6 wars

BURBANK, Ill., Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A Chicago-area woman has been writing to U.S. soldiers since 1944, when she sent letters to her uncle, a Marine serving in the Pacific.

Most of Barbara Spanier's letters are sent to the sons and grandsons of people she knows, WLS-TV, Chicago, reported.

"I feel like they're my sons," she said. "I only have four girls and I feel like they were my sons."

During the Korean War, Spanier wrote letters to her husband, Bill Spanier. They married shortly before he was sent overseas.

Since then, she has written to soldiers serving in Vietnam, the Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Spanier, who lives in a small apartment in Burbank, Ill., used to send hand-written letters, but she has now moved with the times and writes them on a computer. But she does not send them via e-mail because she thinks soldiers need letters they can hold and save.

She said her correspondents do write back.

"When I go to the mailbox and find a letter from one of them, I can't wait to get into the house and open it and read it," she told WLS-TV.