Every year, my wife's high school does an exchange with the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka. Her students write letters to sailors. The sailors write back. Some of this year's letters, spelling fixed: "Dear Sailor, is it true you can eat breakfast at any time of day? Please answer honestly." "Dear Sailor, what is the biggest wave you have seen? Bigger than our school?" "Dear Sailor, my grandfather says American sailors helped his town after the tsunami. He says thank you. I am saying it for him, because his English is not good." "Dear Sailor, do you miss your dog? I would miss my dog." Then there was a girl who wrote only three lines. "You are very far from home. In Japan, when someone works hard, we say 'otsukaresama.' Your mother cannot say it to you right now, so I will say it for her." The sailor who got that letter is 19. From a small town in Ohio. His first time away from home. He wrote back one page. My wife let me read it. He said he'd been homesick for four months and hadn't told anybody. He said he read her letter three times, standing in the passageway. Then he did something nobody expected. He mailed her letter home to his mother. Last week, an envelope arrived at my wife's school. Postmarked Ohio. Addressed to the girl. Inside was a card. "Thank you for saying it for me. I've said it to his picture every night since he left. I'm so glad somebody over there finally said it out loud."