TRANSCRIBED FROM THE SPECTATOR JULY 15, 1919 P. 3
Brest France,
June 23, 1919.
Dear Lacy:
Got your letter written the first of June sure was glad to get it.
I am going on a 14 day leave of absence beginning the first of next month, will go to Paris and several saints in France and then go to Belgium and over the battlefields. Lt. Euders and Douglass are going with me. I haven’t been on a leave since I’ve been here, most everyone else here has, so thought I’d take one. They say everything up in Belgium is very beautiful this time of year. Lt. McCarty has just returned from a trip there.
Guess by the time I get back I will be ordered home, that will be about the 15th of July. They are expecting to have everyone home by the last of July so guess I’ll be home pretty soon now, believe me I’ll be glad to get there too. Have been here almost a year. My previous service in the National Guards and my experience in adjutants work is what is keeping me here.
It is raining today for the first time in about three weeks.
The French are having a revolution here in Brest. They have a big demonstration. The other night about 2,000 of them had a parade and went over to the big French barracks and took charge of them and have armed themselves. They are expected to break out any time. The French soldiers are guarding the barracks with machine guns and if they come out there will be some fight.
No Americans are allowed on the streets day or night. They say the trouble is that the Americans have raised the price of everything so that it is impossible for them to live. They want the Americans out of here. Of course Uncle Sam is getting them out as fast as he can, they should be a little more patient. They are a bad lot and don’t appreciate the fact that if we hadn’t come over here that the Germans would have this country.
I haven’t gained much since I have been here but am looking years older, look like I was 45. You will be ashamed of me when I come back I am so ugly and old looking, but anyone who stays over here in this country and puts up with the things we have to is bound change considerably and besides you must remember I am nearly getting old anyway I am 31 and will soon be 32 and that is getting up in age.
I have been intending to have some pictures made but it is so hard to get a blooming suit of clothes cleaned and pressed that I can’t look decent so will not have any made until I can at least look like a soldier. I haven’t had a suit cleaned and pressed in over four months and believe me they are some dirty and wrinkled. A shoe shine in this country is a thing unheard of. I have to do my own shoe shining and shaving. The hair cuts we get over here from these French barbers are a scream. They have straight backed barber chairs and when they shave you, you have to get up and wash the soap off of your own face. They don’t know anything and are a hundred years behind times. I am expecting to have a real interesting trip next month, will take a kodak along and make some pictures of interesting things.
Had a letter from Bosy the other day and answered it at once.
Write me as often as possible for I get awful lonely for a letter sometimes.
Be good and I will be home before long. I am just crazy to see you.
Lovingly,
Tom
NOTES: Lieutenant Thomas Delaney was a newspaper man in Alma and Mulberry.
TRANSCRIBED BY MIKE POLSTON
Brest France,
June 23, 1919.
Dear Lacy:
Got your letter written the first of June sure was glad to get it.
I am going on a 14 day leave of absence beginning the first of next month, will go to Paris and several saints in France and then go to Belgium and over the battlefields. Lt. Euders and Douglass are going with me. I haven’t been on a leave since I’ve been here, most everyone else here has, so thought I’d take one. They say everything up in Belgium is very beautiful this time of year. Lt. McCarty has just returned from a trip there.
Guess by the time I get back I will be ordered home, that will be about the 15th of July. They are expecting to have everyone home by the last of July so guess I’ll be home pretty soon now, believe me I’ll be glad to get there too. Have been here almost a year. My previous service in the National Guards and my experience in adjutants work is what is keeping me here.
It is raining today for the first time in about three weeks.
The French are having a revolution here in Brest. They have a big demonstration. The other night about 2,000 of them had a parade and went over to the big French barracks and took charge of them and have armed themselves. They are expected to break out any time. The French soldiers are guarding the barracks with machine guns and if they come out there will be some fight.
No Americans are allowed on the streets day or night. They say the trouble is that the Americans have raised the price of everything so that it is impossible for them to live. They want the Americans out of here. Of course Uncle Sam is getting them out as fast as he can, they should be a little more patient. They are a bad lot and don’t appreciate the fact that if we hadn’t come over here that the Germans would have this country.
I haven’t gained much since I have been here but am looking years older, look like I was 45. You will be ashamed of me when I come back I am so ugly and old looking, but anyone who stays over here in this country and puts up with the things we have to is bound change considerably and besides you must remember I am nearly getting old anyway I am 31 and will soon be 32 and that is getting up in age.
I have been intending to have some pictures made but it is so hard to get a blooming suit of clothes cleaned and pressed that I can’t look decent so will not have any made until I can at least look like a soldier. I haven’t had a suit cleaned and pressed in over four months and believe me they are some dirty and wrinkled. A shoe shine in this country is a thing unheard of. I have to do my own shoe shining and shaving. The hair cuts we get over here from these French barbers are a scream. They have straight backed barber chairs and when they shave you, you have to get up and wash the soap off of your own face. They don’t know anything and are a hundred years behind times. I am expecting to have a real interesting trip next month, will take a kodak along and make some pictures of interesting things.
Had a letter from Bosy the other day and answered it at once.
Write me as often as possible for I get awful lonely for a letter sometimes.
Be good and I will be home before long. I am just crazy to see you.
Lovingly,
Tom
NOTES: Lieutenant Thomas Delaney was a newspaper man in Alma and Mulberry.
TRANSCRIBED BY MIKE POLSTON