TRANSCRIBED FROM THE COLUMBIA BANNER FEBRUARY 12, 1919 P. 1
Noils, France
Dear Home Folks:
We are coming home. The task that was before us is nearly finished and now day by day the stripes are bringing us home.
If we have done well it was for love of you.
We understand that we were sent forth to stay something which if it thrived unchecked would one day reach out across the sea and destroy you.
Very clearly we understand that by our fighting would you be judged among the free people. That hour had struck for us to show mankind the metal of our soldiers, and believe this there was not one of us that did not walk a little straighter, live a little cleaner, work a little better, fight a little harder and on that account many a boy wrote in his “Mothers” day letter last spring. “I want folks to see your raising in me” America, it was so with every one of us. We wanted all the world to see your raising in us.
There are more than 2,000,000 of us proud boys coming back as fast as your ship can bring us, every one of us a better citizen than when we went away. Better citizen because we know each other better. Rich and poor, high and low, rough and polished, north and south – the war has mixed us all together. Above all better citizens because American means more to us than ever before.
One thing we have had to learn, that is, what it means to do without America, some for a little while, some for indeterminable time. We have seen such shining things done at home. Those who were at Chateau Thierry and Marne west of Verdun have seen men in olive drab and forest green beside us show themselves made of such stuff as made us wonder.
There were some of us that had to come all the way from America to the Marne to see what American liberty meant.
We at home had come to take our liberty as a matter of course, like the air we breath and the unfailing sun. Now we have seen what it costs to have it.
Your Soldier,
Sam Dodson.
NOTES: Sam Dodson was born on April 16, 1893 at Magnolia, Columbia County, Arkansas and died on February 20, 1969 at Little Rock, Arkansas. He is buried in the Philadelphia Cemetery, Philadelphia, Columbia County, Arkansas. He enlisted in Company K, 3rd Division Arkansas National Guard. His military headstone identifies him as an Arkansas Pvt. 24 Bn. 20 Engineers, World War I. He was described as being tall and slender with brown eyes and brown hair.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT