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Show Kathl een Norris Says: Home Front Is at War Too Btll Syndlcatt.-WNU ftaturei. rBefi! Evtry girl , . , driving a riveter, grimly toiling over a turret lathe, it working Under pressure like thai of battle. By KATHLEEN NORRIS SOME of the boys on leave get too much spoiling. They become absolutely surfeited with parties, cake, visitors, compliments. They don't have a moment alone. Aunts, uncles, cousins, friends they have hardly seen, for years unite to indulge and pamper them, until they long for just a little peace a little of the old ignoring and solitude soli-tude and casualness that used to mean "home." Other boys are In the position of Walt Baker, who wrltea me a blue and disgusted letter from one of the South Sea Islands. '1 am just back from leave." says Walt's letter, "and up against all the discomforts and loneliness of this place. We get enough to eat; we're not In any Immediate danger; we have movies and cigarettes but we're all so homesick that we can't talk of anything else but what we'll do when we get back! "But as far as I'm concerned I'd Just as soon go anywhere else than home, when the war is over," the letter goes on. "My last leave was a funny eye-opener for me. me folks are all into the war up to their chins nothing else talked about but war work. "My mother's working, both my sisters are in volunteer hospital service, serv-ice, my Dad's on ration boards and bond drives, and my girl is making three hundred a month and going around with a lot of guys who wear oil-soaked Jeans and look as If they never washed. - For that matter, she looks that way, too. No Rest at Home Now. "I thought I left the war out here, but I'll be darned if anyone was talking about anything else, where my folks live. It was paper drives and fat collecting and canteens and bonds, entertaining the dear boys from the marines camp, knitting, with everyone reaching for the radio ra-dio when the news commentators were on. Everyone talking of Normandy Nor-mandy postwar Ploestl oil fields East Prussia De Gaulle more cookies ration stamps. Maybe that's their idea of a nice restful rest-ful homecoming, but I can tell you It wasn't mine. "From what I saw I don't believe be-lieve my girl's going to wait tor me," this despondent letter goes on. "There doesn't seem to be any place for me In any of their lives. I'd go in and ait on my mother's bed to talk to her at night, and pretty soon she'd say, 'Darling, I'm terribly tired. That old alarm is set for six o'clock. Trot off to a movie.' "With my sisters it would be, 'We're on night duty, Walt. C.n'l help H-shorthanded.' And with Eleanor El-eanor it was apt to be, 'I've got to get to bed early, Wait We've promised prom-ised a shipment before the first and we're all working overtime. "Can't you pep up some of these women," finishes Walt, "and tell them a man likes a little fuss to be made over him when he comes back from the Marshalls?" Well, yea. I can, Walt, and I do. There'i a happy medium even In war work. Hut I can't help laughing at your predicament, for never before, be-fore, In all the long history of the world's wars, have men had reason to make this complaint. Women have been encouraged more, they mm Stmt get much spoiling. . , . EVFRYBODY'S BVSY A soldier home on leave after many weary months in the South Pacific area writes that he is sadly disillusioned. Nobody has much time for him. His mother, his sisters, his girl are all so busy at their war plant jobs that they can spend only a little time talk' ing to him, and they are too tired to go anywhere with him. If alter doesn't think his girl is going to wait for him, either. She is making three hundred dollars a month and running around with a lot of greasy -mechanics. Things look pretty dark to this tired fighting man. Well, Miss Norris replies, what would the soldiers and sailors think if people on the home front weren't thinking and working and sacrificing? It's everybmly'i war and the harder everyone pitches in, the sooner it will be over. have been urged to do their share today, to-day, and royally they have responded. respond-ed. Comfort yourself that what you saw was the supreme effort to help at the very top and crisis of a world disaster. They answered the country's coun-try's call for help, and they are as absorbed in their share of winning tne war as you are in yews. If Tabtra Were Turned. Imagine just how embarrassed and bored you would be if your two sisters turned up in camp, in the very middle of an engagement. You couldn't knock off work to take them about to restaurants, theaters, movies. mov-ies. The smoke and din of battle, the roaring of the guns, the hurried movements of troops and supplies and hospital would distract you so completely that the girls would be onsy an annoyance and responsibility. responsibil-ity. Just so are affairs at home with the women who are straining every fiber of their beings to keep up with hospital work, fill army contracts, keep assembly lines red hot. We may not actually hear the guns or see the wounded, but the racket and smoke and groans are forever in our hearts. Every girl swiftly changing hospital beds, hurrying about with trays, driving a riveter, grimly toiling toil-ing over a turret lathe, is working under a pressure like that of battle Every girl feels that unless she comes up generously to her quota of work somehow the whole structure struc-ture of defense will full througn. You needn't worry, Walt. These are unnatural times; bad for you out in the Marshalls, bad for us on the home front. We're not trying to make them normal it's no use We're just trying to get through. Wt feel that every hospital tray, ever cooky, every knitted helmet 01 V-mail letter, every bomb and ever) gun barrel completed and sent If one more nail In Germany's In Ja pan's casket. We want their obse quies to be swift and complete. If we can do our job here half as well as you are doing yours far down In the Pacific, 1943 will see you all home again, and the girls pretty and dainty again, and free to enter tain tired soldiers. |