TRANSCRIBED FROM THE DE QUEEN BEE MAY 10, 1918 P. 2
Editor Bee:
Just read Irwin Funk’s letter in your paper of Feb. 22. I can truthfully sanction every word and statement he made in regard to Y.M.C.A. and Red Cross work.
I have also experienced the drill under the top Sergeant while in training at Camp Pike, and can sympathize with the lads in quarantine seven of the eight weeks spent in the camp. I was in four training and concentration camps before crossing over, and Camp Pike with all her dust and “fatigue” had them all beat by far for me.
There are five Sevier county boys in my squadron. We left Gen. Stroud, Langford and a few other boys at Camp Jackson, S.C. We had a pleasant trip across. Have been across some three month or more, and we are now down to business, up where every day sometimes twenty-four hours in the day we can hear the roar of the big guns, which makes one want to get right in and do his bit for the cause of freedom.
The “Sammies” are welcomed anywhere they go, and a manlier soldier is not to be found under the sun.
Assuring the people that all efforts and sacrifices made for the boys in France are duly appreciated by us, and there is not a day that we do not think of our own fair land and loved ones across the sea, which we some day expect to return to, the same true and devoted men that we were when we left, and that from time immemorial fought for the Stars and Stripes.
Hoping this finds the people of Sevier county in the fight as they were when we left the,, and hoping to be back with you all after our trip to “Berlin.” I will close,
Your friend,
Emmet E Harrison,
643rd Aero Squadron, 1st Air Depot,
American Expeditionary Forces
NOTES: Harrison was born in 1894 and died in 1969. He is buried in the Belleville Cemetery in Lockesburg, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY ISAAC WOLTER
Editor Bee:
Just read Irwin Funk’s letter in your paper of Feb. 22. I can truthfully sanction every word and statement he made in regard to Y.M.C.A. and Red Cross work.
I have also experienced the drill under the top Sergeant while in training at Camp Pike, and can sympathize with the lads in quarantine seven of the eight weeks spent in the camp. I was in four training and concentration camps before crossing over, and Camp Pike with all her dust and “fatigue” had them all beat by far for me.
There are five Sevier county boys in my squadron. We left Gen. Stroud, Langford and a few other boys at Camp Jackson, S.C. We had a pleasant trip across. Have been across some three month or more, and we are now down to business, up where every day sometimes twenty-four hours in the day we can hear the roar of the big guns, which makes one want to get right in and do his bit for the cause of freedom.
The “Sammies” are welcomed anywhere they go, and a manlier soldier is not to be found under the sun.
Assuring the people that all efforts and sacrifices made for the boys in France are duly appreciated by us, and there is not a day that we do not think of our own fair land and loved ones across the sea, which we some day expect to return to, the same true and devoted men that we were when we left, and that from time immemorial fought for the Stars and Stripes.
Hoping this finds the people of Sevier county in the fight as they were when we left the,, and hoping to be back with you all after our trip to “Berlin.” I will close,
Your friend,
Emmet E Harrison,
643rd Aero Squadron, 1st Air Depot,
American Expeditionary Forces
NOTES: Harrison was born in 1894 and died in 1969. He is buried in the Belleville Cemetery in Lockesburg, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY ISAAC WOLTER