TRANSCRIBED FROM THE HELENA WORLD JANUARY 6, 1918 P. 3
Camp Beauregard, La.,
Jan. 2, 1917
Dear Sis,
We are working like everything now---about eight hours per day, and when one gets out and drills and takes the setting-up exercises we take, you can say you are certainly tired. We are on the third week of our sixteen weeks of intensive training. We don’t know whether we will get all of it here in the U.S.A. or not. I certainly hope not. As we have gone so far with this war game I want to see France and actual service. We got one machine gun last week and have been training with it. I really like to handle one. I believe I could hit the Kaiser a long way off with one.
Had a letter from Arvel last week. He is somewhere in France now. Do you think Gilbert will have to go to war? Mr. Emrich was here yesterday and is now on his way to Florida to join the aviation school. He sold out his stock to Mr. Hudson, he said. I see Claude nearly every day now. He is in the 153rd Infantry, just across the street from me. Both of us are in the best of health, but there are several cases of spinal meningitis in his regiment. We have been in quarantine about eight weeks. Couldn’t go to town, but the quarantine has raised now, so we can go to town quite often. When I joined the company at Helena I only weighed 123 pounds. Now I weigh 147 pounds. If a man sticks up to this intensive training it will surely make a man of him.
Please answer real soon. My address is,
PRIVATE R. N. HOPPER:
154th Infantry, 39th Division
Camp Beauregard, Louisiana
NOTES:
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLE MCCLAY CLEVELAND
Camp Beauregard, La.,
Jan. 2, 1917
Dear Sis,
We are working like everything now---about eight hours per day, and when one gets out and drills and takes the setting-up exercises we take, you can say you are certainly tired. We are on the third week of our sixteen weeks of intensive training. We don’t know whether we will get all of it here in the U.S.A. or not. I certainly hope not. As we have gone so far with this war game I want to see France and actual service. We got one machine gun last week and have been training with it. I really like to handle one. I believe I could hit the Kaiser a long way off with one.
Had a letter from Arvel last week. He is somewhere in France now. Do you think Gilbert will have to go to war? Mr. Emrich was here yesterday and is now on his way to Florida to join the aviation school. He sold out his stock to Mr. Hudson, he said. I see Claude nearly every day now. He is in the 153rd Infantry, just across the street from me. Both of us are in the best of health, but there are several cases of spinal meningitis in his regiment. We have been in quarantine about eight weeks. Couldn’t go to town, but the quarantine has raised now, so we can go to town quite often. When I joined the company at Helena I only weighed 123 pounds. Now I weigh 147 pounds. If a man sticks up to this intensive training it will surely make a man of him.
Please answer real soon. My address is,
PRIVATE R. N. HOPPER:
154th Infantry, 39th Division
Camp Beauregard, Louisiana
NOTES:
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLE MCCLAY CLEVELAND