Diksha Sundriyal
In Netflix’s ‘The Six Triple Eight,’ a forgotten group of women receives centerstage. The movie focuses on the contribution of the 6888 battalion tasked with clearing up the backlog of around seventeen million mail of the US Army during the Second World War. Despite all the odds stacked against them, the women of the battalion take over this giant of task and prove their mettle despite being the underdogs. The story is primarily told from the perspective of Lena Derriecott, who is motivated to join the army following the death of her friend, Abram David.
Abram David was Lena Derriecott’s Dear Friend in Real Life
Some things have to be fictionalized to bring a real-life story to the screen. However, in ‘The Six Triple Eight,’ Tyler Perry sticks to reality as much as possible, including the part about Abram David. We meet him at the beginning of the film, which gives us an insight into his budding romance with Lena after years of friendship. Their time together is tragically cut short when Abram goes to war and never comes back. This part is plucked directly from Lena Derriecott’s life.
Lena was in her late teens when the Second World War broke out. She was about eighteen when her childhood friend, Abram David, enlisted for war. As mentioned in the movie, he was a young Jewish boy hailing from a well-off family. His parents were the owners of a deli, and Lena had known him and his family since she was a little girl. It is unclear whether she and Abram really were romantically involved, as suggested by the film, but it is confirmed that his death had a huge impact on Lena. Abram was killed in action on his first combat mission. At the time, Lena was working as a nurse at the local hospital. She had already thought about joining the war effort as a nurse, but when she heard of Abrams’ death, she decided to join the army.
Lena’s Work in the 6888 Gives Her the Closure About Abram’s Death
When Tyler Perry met Lena Derriecott and heard her life story, he knew that he needed to write the story of the 6888 from her perspective. She is the audience’s in into the narrative, and we see most events unravel from her point of view. Due to this, the audience also forms an attachment with her that they don’t have with anyone else in the film, which is where her own emotional attachment to Abram comes into play. She decides to join the army because of him, and even though he is dead, she travels all the way to Europe to find him.
Before Abram left, he promised Lena that he would write to her. However, no letter arrived, and when Lena finally got news, it was of his death. It is after Lena is assigned to the 6888 and arrives in Birmingham that she discovers why she never received Abram’s mail. It turns out that no one had received any mail from their loved ones in months, and with her battalion, she sets out to solve this problem. Sending the mail on its way gives her hope that perhaps she will find Abram’s letter to her as well. While she knows he is dead, the letter is her way to feel close to him again. It is the last thing he wrote to her; the words in that letter would be the final ones he’d ever say to her, which is why the letter becomes so important to Lena.
Eventually, the letter is found by her friends, who give it to her immediately, but she cannot read it yet. It is only when she finds his grave, having finally located him for good, that she decides to read his letter. It gives her a sense that she is reading it with him, which gives more depth to his words as he talks about the inevitability of his death and his wish for Lena to continue living her life with the joy he had always seen on her face. With this, Lena finally gets the goodbye she never got with Abram. It also gives her the necessary closure to move on, which allows her to open her heart to Hugh, whom she eventually marries. Finding the letter and Abram’s grave also gives Lena the sense that she finally did what she had set out to do when she joined the army: find her friend and give him a proper farewell.
Read More: Lena Derriecott: How Did the Six Triple Eight Soldier Die?
