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Show THE PAPERS OF PRIVATE PURKEY Dear Ma: I wish you wud stop worrying about me as I am all right accept for fallen arches, flu, chilblains, a limp in both legs and indigestion. But I feel a lot less like squawking since I talked to an old timer up here who was in the last war and from what he says I gess we have all modern improvements up here now. He says in the last war the draft army just had tents Like they I wuz camping out with no wooden floors and no electric lights and he says every time you was not in bed you was standing in wet grass or in a mud puddle. He says tents did not have WTn-dows WTn-dows and screen doors like we j 1- . have today and VTci that in rainy IjY SX. weather a soldier nad to Live like a -Sgp7 'eg? mud turtle. He jZj!f?e from the time he left home until the army got back from France. It is hard for me to beleeve this as this camp is a regular building project and there is almost as many carpenters carpen-ters here as soldiers. They shood have all the buildings finished by the time the war is over, if they get good weather and don't walk so far for nails. Army life is a big disserpointment to me ma on account I always had i an idea from the story books and ; pictures that most soldiers had saddle sad-dle horses to ride. I ain't seen no horse since I got here. It is strictly a bunion derby army as I sed be-four. be-four. I wish army uniforms fitted better. What the army needs is more tailors. I got a hat that is big enough for a coat and a coat so tight I cud use it for a hat. There is no glammer here like in the movies of army life. Almost : everybody here needs a shave and haircut and this goes for the generals gen-erals who are homely old pelicans and don't look nothing like the generals gen-erals in pictures accept Wally Berry. The boys here tell me the training I am getting is good for me but I do not feel no better than when I started training even if I am in better bet-ter shape like the doctors say. I wud rather be out of condishun in private life than a perfect spesser- men In the army. I sleep good but not for long on account of. the rule that makes a soldier get up at daybreak. day-break. (I never seen so many sunrises sun-rises in my life.) Gee ma I am half through a day's training before you and the folks are out of bed back home. I wud be in better shape for a war if I cud sleep an hour longer. If I wuz in a war I wud not squawk but what is the sense getting an army up so early when there is nothing to do but just what you done the day befour witch cud be done better in brighter sunlite anyhow. any-how. I am glad the winter is over. The first robin was seen in a army chicken chick-en pie here yesterday and four baby chicks hatched out of a half dozen eggs in the mess room last week. Spring can't cum to soon as I have had cnuff outdoor Life in cold weather weath-er and do not care for it even if it does make Eskimoes healthier. Well, I must close now ma as I have got to go walking again in defense de-fense of my country. Cud you send me some more socks as my feet wear right through them the first 100 miles? Love, Oscar. OBSERVATION There's nothing makes a man yell "Ouchl" Like sewing left upon a couch. Merrill Chilcote Add similes: as nonchalant as the average American talking about an appropriation of $7,000,000,000. SLIGHT ACHIEVEMENT Results are so flimsy From things done by whimsy. Merrill Chilcote New York has had a drugstore strike which crippled the drugstores so badly they were unable to handle anything but drugs and medical supplies. sup-plies. The Turks closed the Straits to the crooks, as it were. Hank Ford says that flivver airplane air-plane will soon be as easy to op-orate op-orate as the first auto used to be. But It's Koii'K to seem strange to sea the it i r full of Lizzies with feathers feath-ers on 'em. |