TRANSCRIBED FROM THE PINE BLUFF DAILY GRAPHIC MAY 6, 1918 P. 12
My Dear Grandmother:
Am writing you a note to let you know that even though I am in the midst of wonderful things, I am still thinking of the dear ones at home.
I have just returned from war ridden France for the third time, and expect to go back over there most any time now.
Grandmother, we Americans at home can not realize the immensity of this great war, and how it is putting Democracy and civilization back hundreds of years. They also don’t realize what this great country is doing—for we are doing. Last fall I went to a little city in France that was rack and ruin, dirty, fallen down and ridden with disease. The Americans have established a base there now, and when I left it two weeks ago it was as clean as “Child’s Restaurant” and as busy as New York itself. One can’t realize what this government can do until they see it with their own eyes.
The sad part, grandma, last fall we carried troops, fine sons of American mothers, and Red Cross nurses, noble daughters of Liberty, on this trip returning we brought some of them back maimed wrecks torn with shrapnel and gagged with gas. It hurts to look upon such things. May God speed up the Liberty Bond sales and let us hurry and exterminate the Hun from this bright world of ours—make the seas and shores, highways and byways of commerce and civilization such as He intended them in the beginning. It is bad enough over there—it must not come over here—and we American boys are not going to let it if the people will just realize and let us have men, ships and money, and all to do it with.
NOTES: Rob Lee Byrd was writing to his grandmother, Mrs. E. D. Cook. He was born in December 1890 in Arkansas. He was an electrician on the USS Pocahontas. He also served on the USS Calhoun. His father was Will W. Byrd of Pine Bluff.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
My Dear Grandmother:
Am writing you a note to let you know that even though I am in the midst of wonderful things, I am still thinking of the dear ones at home.
I have just returned from war ridden France for the third time, and expect to go back over there most any time now.
Grandmother, we Americans at home can not realize the immensity of this great war, and how it is putting Democracy and civilization back hundreds of years. They also don’t realize what this great country is doing—for we are doing. Last fall I went to a little city in France that was rack and ruin, dirty, fallen down and ridden with disease. The Americans have established a base there now, and when I left it two weeks ago it was as clean as “Child’s Restaurant” and as busy as New York itself. One can’t realize what this government can do until they see it with their own eyes.
The sad part, grandma, last fall we carried troops, fine sons of American mothers, and Red Cross nurses, noble daughters of Liberty, on this trip returning we brought some of them back maimed wrecks torn with shrapnel and gagged with gas. It hurts to look upon such things. May God speed up the Liberty Bond sales and let us hurry and exterminate the Hun from this bright world of ours—make the seas and shores, highways and byways of commerce and civilization such as He intended them in the beginning. It is bad enough over there—it must not come over here—and we American boys are not going to let it if the people will just realize and let us have men, ships and money, and all to do it with.
NOTES: Rob Lee Byrd was writing to his grandmother, Mrs. E. D. Cook. He was born in December 1890 in Arkansas. He was an electrician on the USS Pocahontas. He also served on the USS Calhoun. His father was Will W. Byrd of Pine Bluff.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT