Mrs. Sonia Bonici – Senior Correspondence Officer, Buckingham Palac

August 5, 2009

Mrs. Sonia Bonici – Senior Correspondence Officer
Buckingham Palace
London SW1A 1AA
England

Dear Mrs. Bonici,

You were gracious enough to reply to my request to the Queen on what to do with a book – Heroic Record of the British Navy – that I found and purchased last year in a used book store in Texas.

On your advice I sent it to the Admiralty Library on February 23, 2009. Alas, I have had no acknowledgement of it. I enclose a letter I sent to them on August 2, 2009.

As I was reading it this morning it occurred to me that I may have short changed your sovereign. Harry, her grandson and the reason for the first letter to you in January, served with the Royal Marines in combat. At the very least he would have qualified for a Combat Infantryman’s Badge. As is said in this country, “He saw the elephant”. “Having taken the Queen’s shilling” it can be said that he earned it.

In my country the United States Marine Corps is a part of the United States Navy. If a similar structure exists in your country permit me to amend my last paragraph.

“That qualifies her as Navy daughter, a Navy wife, a Navy mother,
and a Navy grandmother.”

I thought she should know.




Kevin Smith