TRANSCRIBED FROM THE LAFAYETTE COUNTY DEMOCRAT NOVEMBER 2, 1917, p 5
Dear Father:
I received your letter a few days ago and was glad to hear from you. I am well now tho I have been sick a little with my arms but they are about well. I have taken my last shot, so I am about ready to be a soldier riget. We are learning new things every day and there is a lot of things you learn in the army and the quicker you learn them the better off one is, and you sure have got to learn. There is no way getting around it. I have got by so far, haven’t had to do any extra duty yet.
The biggest thing we are having to do now is hiking. They take us out every evening for about 4 hours, sometimes we don’t get any water until we get back to camp, and it sure is dry here. It hasn’t rained since I have been here and for a long time before.
We haven’t taken any target practice yet. I have heard we would be carried to Leon Springs for that, it is another camp 23 miles below here, and is a days journey, so I guess that’s the reason we are doing so much hiking, to toughen us to it. You can tell the world that there is something to do here all the time and they have a way of doing it and everything works like machinery. When they say move you have got to move and do it quick. It would be some sight for you to see so you had better come out when you get everything wound up. There is something to see all the time. We see airplanes sailing around the camps every day. You have no idea how much money it takes to run these camps. There are four camps around San Antonio, and money is no object here only to a soldier boy. I can’t begin to tell you of all the things here, there is one thing sure, Uncle Sam is going to have an army some day if he keeps on. I am writing this letter in the Y.M.C.A., and there is about 150 men in here singing, they sure do make some music. We have 80 new men in our company making 170 now in the company and we have to go to another kitchen to eat as we haven’t a cook yet, cooks are in big demand.
This will do for the first time.
J. O. Hudson
Co. 358
NOTES: J. O. Hudson was writing to his father of Buckner, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.
Dear Father:
I received your letter a few days ago and was glad to hear from you. I am well now tho I have been sick a little with my arms but they are about well. I have taken my last shot, so I am about ready to be a soldier riget. We are learning new things every day and there is a lot of things you learn in the army and the quicker you learn them the better off one is, and you sure have got to learn. There is no way getting around it. I have got by so far, haven’t had to do any extra duty yet.
The biggest thing we are having to do now is hiking. They take us out every evening for about 4 hours, sometimes we don’t get any water until we get back to camp, and it sure is dry here. It hasn’t rained since I have been here and for a long time before.
We haven’t taken any target practice yet. I have heard we would be carried to Leon Springs for that, it is another camp 23 miles below here, and is a days journey, so I guess that’s the reason we are doing so much hiking, to toughen us to it. You can tell the world that there is something to do here all the time and they have a way of doing it and everything works like machinery. When they say move you have got to move and do it quick. It would be some sight for you to see so you had better come out when you get everything wound up. There is something to see all the time. We see airplanes sailing around the camps every day. You have no idea how much money it takes to run these camps. There are four camps around San Antonio, and money is no object here only to a soldier boy. I can’t begin to tell you of all the things here, there is one thing sure, Uncle Sam is going to have an army some day if he keeps on. I am writing this letter in the Y.M.C.A., and there is about 150 men in here singing, they sure do make some music. We have 80 new men in our company making 170 now in the company and we have to go to another kitchen to eat as we haven’t a cook yet, cooks are in big demand.
This will do for the first time.
J. O. Hudson
Co. 358
NOTES: J. O. Hudson was writing to his father of Buckner, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY CAROLYN YANCEY KENT.