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Show INFANTRY LIFE I; BY TOLLESTRUP Lights and Shadows of Soldier's Fife in Training Camp Told by Iron County Recruit. ! Camp Dodge, Iowa, Dec. 15, 1017. Dear Folk?.- I got your note the j other day. Was very triad to get it, what there was of it. Surely you are not too poor to afford a little stationery station-ery on which to write nnother line or two! Your letters are so short that I don't get much out of them. In the future at least write enough to tell me what is going on. And if you want to preach, why preach. I'd as soon have that as anything. Goodness knows I hear so little of it anyway, and probably a little more would be good for me. The life here goes on In nuch the same old manner. I told you about being quarantined, didn't I? It has not been lifted yet. I think, however, that before very much longer we will be at liberty again. The other day B couple of Nigger soldiers broke out with the smallpox. They were in the base hospital, so they exposed a lot of the Forty-second bovs who were there too. In order to prevent a spread of the disease throughout the regiment, every soldier in the '12nd was vaccinated, whether he had been vaccinated before or not. Of course I got mine, but it hasn't amounted to anything. I was vaccinated last spring so it won't take with me. It has healed already. Our conmpany went on guard yesterday yes-terday and came off today. That v;is the third time we've been on. It takes a whole company at a time so I get guard every time as everyone else does in the company. I've been orderly or-derly twice out of the three times we have been on so I have only walked post oner. They pick out the neatest soldiers In the guard for orderlys. The first time I was orderly to the colonel, the commanding officer of the 12nd. I was ehpaen yesterday in the same capacity, but thought I'd rather have the job of telephone orderly to the adjutant. I'm not stuck on either iob. but it beats walking nost these J. Ill, "III It III llin . I I f 1 1 1 '".'t llll.-l cold nights. The night I walked post was not very cold. I had a post that was about a mile ami a halt' from the j guard house, and it took me to long to get there after being relieved that I didn't have much time to sleep be-1 tween times. The post was guarding ammunition magazines, so I had to be real careful. I could allow no smoking around there at all, so I had to make everybody put out their) smokes. I even had to have the of-Seen of-Seen throw their dears down and ' put them out. This rather "got their goat," but I had the "whip hand" and they had to do as I laid, I seem to have rather uncanny luck at getting a post around a powder house. When I was at Ft. D. I nearly always got that post. At I), there was only one to guard, but here there are ten, and I think there are groups of them all over the camp. The 43rd docs nearly all the heavy guard duty here. Our posts are situated sit-uated nearly all over the west part of the camp. Since we have been here we've got the "conscript" scared to death. One fellow got shot in the leg for not halting at a sentinel's order. or-der. Last night one of the fellows in our company shot up the gas tank of an auto bus for not halting. Our or- J dort are to keep things straitight on ; our posts and if people don't know ( enough to obey sentinel's orders they imI Into trouble every time, This is . especially SO when a regular army j regiment is on guard. s we have to have tilings OUT way according to our orders, or we get Into trouble our ' selves. So if we have to shoot, we! shoot. We know our business. I hope I never have occasion to h I01 anyone though, while I am in camp. As I said, because of the incident mentioned above, we have got conscripts con-scripts worried. They needn't be, though, if they only mind their business. busi-ness. We mind ours and expect them to Blind theirs. It seems that we ire going to have a lot of guard duty this whole winter. 1 caa't expect to be orderly all the time, so 1 will walk post quite u bit. Thus I think I'm in line for a darned i"l of experience this winter. 1 still think this regiment will end its days in the I'. S. A. We aren't getting any special training for the trenches, aside from a little bayonet 1 work. We had a "smoker" here the other-night. other-night. Our lieutenant bought enough cigarettes and cigars for the whole ; company, and we pitched in and had a grand old time. We invited the colonel and adjutant as well as a lot of other officers. I got up a quartet in which I sang as first tenor, and my voice was the best in it); put up some average singing. A soldier accom- j panled us on a Hawaiian guitar. It ( was grand music, I tell you. The i olonel gave us a talk in which he i said we might go to France or we might not. He said that, by next spring enough American soldiers would be in France to crush the (lei- ' man army, and that by next fall we would bave peace, lie talked or a chance to fight in Prance merely as a little adventure and that if we passed through it, as nearly all of us would, we would not part with the experience for our lives. I think he is right, too. The war will not last long when Ununited Un-united States gets prepared to strike. It will simply blow up and we'll have peace in short order. Well, I guess I can't gel home this Christmas. They are only going to give us IS hour passes ami I doo'' think I can get home in that time, do you'.' Well, there are other Chrisi- mases coming, end I guess you won't die if I don't get there tin-: Christmas I won't either, but would Bure like to yet home. I haven't heard from Eugene. I believe he's "hit the high road" fo Prance. Wish 1 were with him. Now, write me a letter that is a let ter. I'm a long ways from home, but that's no sign that I'm not interested , In what's going on there. Love, and God bless you. PRATT TOLLESTRUP. ISnd iT. B. Inf., Co. II. |