Today has been somewhat uneventful, at least in comparison to the last few days. The Captain seems to have killed a group of Leavanny, leaving us in charge of caring for all of their brood. I can't help but wonder - Pokemon that have that many children, how can they even care about each individual child? A hundred children between four mothers... I find it hard to imagine a human woman in the same place, naming and caring for twenty five children. How difficult it must be, to be a pokemon? As I think on this, my thoughts drift towards home and my own family... I will write about them, then, in the event that some memory of them lives on even if we fail, or should we succeed, that whoever reads these letters knows about who was close to my heart.

My father, Erich Blum, is a stern, but fair man, a full head taller than me. He is Feldwebel - seargent major. He has been in the thick of fighting since the beginning of the war, a true German patriot, and it is practically providence that he has not suffered severe injuries thus far. I saw him very briefly before heading for Berlin, temporarily leave as he himself was being reassigned, and he told me how very proud he was of me. Do I deserve that praise, I wonder?

Mother... she is Heidi Blum. She is from a mixed German and Italian family, having grown up near vineyards in her youth. She and father met at the Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin and instantly fell for one another. She is a remarkable woman who, in addition to her housekeeping duties, keeps a small vegetable garden outside our house. When I was little, I would often help her in the garden, hoeing, planting, and harvesting. It was thanks to her that I grew to have a love of growing plants, a skill that is beginning to help us even now.

And finally, there is my sister, Klaudia. She will be sixteen in three months. How time flies! And even if we are victorious here I do not think I will be back in time to see her come into her age. She is a very dutiful, mature girl well beyond her years, and has been taking an apprenticeship under a seamstress back home. She made me a cloth bracelet before we left, with my name and little Pachirisu - her favorite kind of pokemon. She and mother are the ones I worry about the most these days... I promise, I'll return to you someday.

Writing this has made me begin to become terribly homesick. I think I will need to take a walk to clear my head, some. And gather food for the little ones in the meantime. We must think of a solution to take care of them - we are having enough trouble dedicating resources to taking care of ourselves. Then again, if we can take a few aside, perhaps we can make use of their talents when they grow up? ...Either way we cannot take care of so many, yet we cannot let them starve. What a conundrum...