-2- #AMVAT 423, Thirtieth, from Rome            
 
                                                            
 
 
your firesides awaiting the dawn of the new year. They feel the advent   
of a new year, they lend their ears to the seasons carols on your radio or   
in the street or perhaps they see you in their favorite church joining   
with their friends in singing their favorite hymns. It is a very natural   
and wholesome reflection that is theirs tonight as they enter upon a year   
so filled with promise out in the vast spaces encircling the globe. Our   
splendid men and women who are engaged in the war are conscious of the   
duty which they owe to their country. They are too exchanging New Years   
greetings and are alive with renewed confidence that this new year will   
bring them much nearer home. These thoughts are symbolic of our accustomed   
american life, they gladden the soul, they soothe the heartache. Italy   
which we used to think of as a land of happy and peaceful homes presents a   
diffeerent aspect today. War in all its fury passed over Italy's beaches,   
through its rugged mountains and into the peaceful valley of Cassino. In   
spite of all its sorrows there is brooding over the fields od Cassino a   
spirit of renewed hope and abiding inspiration to make a better world that   
            in the spririt of those honored dead            
 
                       speaking to us