Dear Aunt May,

Sorry I haven't written since I shipped out. Things have been pretty hectic and they keep you running around here a lot. I got your package of milky sweets... thanks. They were a big hit with all the guys in my platoon (don't worry, I managed to snag one for myself). It must be cold there in New York. I've only been across the pond for six months and I think I've already forgotten how to make a proper snowball. You wouldn't believe how hot it gets here... I've probably sweat off twenty pounds since I stepped off the plane. The humidity makes you feel like you're walking through bath water and it seems like everything around here can make you sick. The doc hands out pills every odd week that he says are for preventing malaria, but I know they're actually for leprosy. It's stuff like that where I curse spending all those years with my nose in a science book. Just another thing I wish I didn't know about.

I know you're probably still upset that I dropped out of college to join up, but I needed a change... with Mary Jane leaving me again, the Bugle having cutbacks and that whole Dr. Octavius ordeal, everything just came to a head. Even then, things haven't been right for a while now... not since Uncle Ben died.

Ever since that day I've been trying my hardest to live up to what he taught me, but somewhere along the line it all went out of control... it was too much for me to handle anymore. But being over here, just trying to stay alive every day, makes all those back-home problems so insignificant. All the secrets, all the excuses, all the times you washed blood out of my clothes... I'm finally ready to come clean.

I'm Spider-Man.

Back home, the whole secret identity thing seemed so important, so necessary, but here it doesn't matter in the slightest. Everyone has seen their share of shock that a kid with spider powers barely even registers to them. The Colonel is cool with it... he figures as long as the top brass doesn't know they've got a superhero in their division then he gets to keep a good soldier in the muck and not down in Saigon doing press tours.

Writing all of this down... I realize it's a mistake. All of it, everything. Just a big mistake. But staying alive is as good as it gets and I can't do that as Peter Parker.

I just thought you should hear it from me first, Aunt May.

All my best,

Peter

November 23, 1967