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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Home Front Is at War Too Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. ' Every girl . . . driving a riveter, grimly toiling over a turret lathe, is working Under pressure like that of battle. EVERYBODY'S BUSY 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 talking talk-ing to him, and they are. too tired to go anywhere with him. Walter 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 everybody's war and the harder everyone pitches in, the sooner it will be over. 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 writes me a blue and disgusted letter from one of the South Sea islands. "I 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. The 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 Ploesti 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 for me," this despondent letter goes on. "There doesn't seem to be any place for me in ny of their lives. I'd go in and sit 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. Can't help it shorthanded.' And with Eleanor El-eanor it was apt to be, 'I've got to get to bed early, Walt. 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, yes, I can, Walt, and I do There's a happy medium even ir war work. But I can't help laughing at your predicament, for never be- 0 fore, in all the long history of the world's wars, have men had reason to make this complaint. Women have been encouraged more, thpv 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 win.mng the war as you are in yours. If Tables Were tamed. 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 only 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 fall through. 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. We feel that every hospital tray, every cooky, every knitted helmet or V-mail letter, every bomb and every gun barrel completed and sent is one more nail in Germany's in Japan's Ja-pan's casket. We want their obsequies obse-quies to be swift and complete. If we can do our job here half as well as you are doing yours far down n the Pacific, 1945 will see you all rome again, and the girls pretty ard dainty again, and free to entertain enter-tain ired soldiers. Some boys get too much spoiling. , , . j |