TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT NOVEMBER 8, 1918 P. 12
I have seen fine specimens of German and Turkish prisoners; magnificent soldiers of France, England, Algiers, Morocco and Japan, but the American with his steel helmet and his smile seems to me the most ideal soldier, I wish you could see the fellows over here. Marshall Foch said of them, “They ask only to go forward and their only fault is they go too far.” We have finished a two day hike to one of the biggest artillery camps in the world. My pack was just beginning to weigh a million pounds and my hobnail boots were beginning to resist all efforts to lift them when all at once I looked ahead and saw a Y.M.C.A. sign and a lot of American women dishing out hot coffee to the troops. Wow! I forgot all about the pack. They gave us “Squads right, packs off, at rest,” and I never ate better coffee and cake in my life. After that we stepped off the last kilometers to camp with as much “pep” as if we were passing in review.
Thus far I have not found anything that I want that I can’t get over here. The news shops here have on display as many papers and magazines as the news stands at home. We even have the news from home in an issue of the New York Herald, published at Paris. I passed a gorgeous theatre, one of the prettiest I have seen. From the posters in front I judge an American soldier and a French girl were the principal characters in it. But really outside of the moves and the popular songs there is very little love-making between the two. For one reason, hardly one in one hundred of us can make ourselves understood without the aid of our handbooks and the writer of the book has very thoughtlessly left out everything we might wish to say to a fair young maiden, and furthermore we have not seen anyone who in comparison with the American girl could be considered beautiful, but the hand book is the chief difficulty. What fun is there in saying to a girl, “Where is the train to Paris?” or “Our battalion is ready to attack?”
Every vine-covered wall seems to breath of forgotten romance. The quaint dress and manners of the pheasants add to the spell of it, and it seems like we are encamped in a land of a century ago. When the moon is swinging low behind some shadowy tower and the campfires are glimmering among the hills, one is surprised to find boys in khaki sitting around the campfires singing, “Where the Black-eyed Susans Grow.” One had almost expected to find the bearded troops of the first Bonaparte. But the khaki army is really the more glorious of the two. No other army has ever traveled so far overseas to fight nor more eagerly. They are a dashing, singing bunch of fellows, who are not, I believe, afraid of anything except some other fellow will get their girls while they are gone.
NOTES: This partial letter was written by Corporal Robert Lee Harris to his brother, Wayne C. Harris. He was born on December 17, 1897 in Arkansas and died on December 28, 1980 in Missouri. His family was listed in Texarkana, Miller County, Arkansas in 1910 and he graduated from Texarkana High School. He served in the “Panther Division” of the 133rd Field Artillery. He is buried in the Wise Hill Cemetery in Clever, Missouri.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT
I have seen fine specimens of German and Turkish prisoners; magnificent soldiers of France, England, Algiers, Morocco and Japan, but the American with his steel helmet and his smile seems to me the most ideal soldier, I wish you could see the fellows over here. Marshall Foch said of them, “They ask only to go forward and their only fault is they go too far.” We have finished a two day hike to one of the biggest artillery camps in the world. My pack was just beginning to weigh a million pounds and my hobnail boots were beginning to resist all efforts to lift them when all at once I looked ahead and saw a Y.M.C.A. sign and a lot of American women dishing out hot coffee to the troops. Wow! I forgot all about the pack. They gave us “Squads right, packs off, at rest,” and I never ate better coffee and cake in my life. After that we stepped off the last kilometers to camp with as much “pep” as if we were passing in review.
Thus far I have not found anything that I want that I can’t get over here. The news shops here have on display as many papers and magazines as the news stands at home. We even have the news from home in an issue of the New York Herald, published at Paris. I passed a gorgeous theatre, one of the prettiest I have seen. From the posters in front I judge an American soldier and a French girl were the principal characters in it. But really outside of the moves and the popular songs there is very little love-making between the two. For one reason, hardly one in one hundred of us can make ourselves understood without the aid of our handbooks and the writer of the book has very thoughtlessly left out everything we might wish to say to a fair young maiden, and furthermore we have not seen anyone who in comparison with the American girl could be considered beautiful, but the hand book is the chief difficulty. What fun is there in saying to a girl, “Where is the train to Paris?” or “Our battalion is ready to attack?”
Every vine-covered wall seems to breath of forgotten romance. The quaint dress and manners of the pheasants add to the spell of it, and it seems like we are encamped in a land of a century ago. When the moon is swinging low behind some shadowy tower and the campfires are glimmering among the hills, one is surprised to find boys in khaki sitting around the campfires singing, “Where the Black-eyed Susans Grow.” One had almost expected to find the bearded troops of the first Bonaparte. But the khaki army is really the more glorious of the two. No other army has ever traveled so far overseas to fight nor more eagerly. They are a dashing, singing bunch of fellows, who are not, I believe, afraid of anything except some other fellow will get their girls while they are gone.
NOTES: This partial letter was written by Corporal Robert Lee Harris to his brother, Wayne C. Harris. He was born on December 17, 1897 in Arkansas and died on December 28, 1980 in Missouri. His family was listed in Texarkana, Miller County, Arkansas in 1910 and he graduated from Texarkana High School. He served in the “Panther Division” of the 133rd Field Artillery. He is buried in the Wise Hill Cemetery in Clever, Missouri.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT