TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ARKANSAS GAZETTE NOVEMBER 17, 1918 P. 2
I understand now why the ocean has so much water in it, it all comes from France. When we arrived it was raining and it is raining now, not again but still. You go to bed, night after night, thinking tomorrow will be clear, but it rains on and on. You do not drink enough here to dampen your tongue; you absorb all that’s necessary.
A great game here is listening to one of our French-speaking Americans telling it to a native. We have more luck grunting and gesticulating. Everybody is happy in our crowd, always laughing and kidding. When you go down a street and see an old gentleman or an old lady driving a couple of milch cows, lots of thatched roofed houses, cobblestone pavements, great gobs of rain and mud, Bill, then you know you are in the sections of sunny France we occupy.
Anent the Y. M. C. A. he remarks:
A wonderful work they are doing, and I don’t know what the American soldier would do without it.
NOTES: This is a partial letter written by Elbert Boullion of Arkadelphia, Arkansas to W. H. Halliburton.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
I understand now why the ocean has so much water in it, it all comes from France. When we arrived it was raining and it is raining now, not again but still. You go to bed, night after night, thinking tomorrow will be clear, but it rains on and on. You do not drink enough here to dampen your tongue; you absorb all that’s necessary.
A great game here is listening to one of our French-speaking Americans telling it to a native. We have more luck grunting and gesticulating. Everybody is happy in our crowd, always laughing and kidding. When you go down a street and see an old gentleman or an old lady driving a couple of milch cows, lots of thatched roofed houses, cobblestone pavements, great gobs of rain and mud, Bill, then you know you are in the sections of sunny France we occupy.
Anent the Y. M. C. A. he remarks:
A wonderful work they are doing, and I don’t know what the American soldier would do without it.
NOTES: This is a partial letter written by Elbert Boullion of Arkadelphia, Arkansas to W. H. Halliburton.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT