TRANSCRIBED FROM THE LOG CABIN DEMOCRAT SEPTEMBER 19, 1918 P. 2
August 14, 1918.
Dear Mother:
No doubt you are thinking me dead by this time after having told Mattie of me being in the front line trenches. No, I'm just as safe and sound as I was when I went up there and I believe I am getting fatter all the time.
At the present I am back in a rest camp after having served my first stay in the trenches. It's a great old game and one is in a position that eh actually knows that he has a chance to do his bit and I feel that we "medics" are of more importance than we ever get credit for, but now we are getting a glad hand from most all the line men and they have come to the conclusion that we are one of the boys and taking a bigger chance than they are, as we haven't any kind of protection at all. We used to go by the name of "pill rollers" and now it is all the way from sergeant to lieutenant doctors, etc.
Some of the boys in coimng in the infirmary for different little ailments will pop their heels together and say, "Sir, I have an awfully bad headache," etc. I'm only a private, just the same as they and I don't care to be anything else if it will take me out of the trenches away from the boys, for I feel more at home there helping them than I would be somewhere else.
Mother, I know you are worrying lots about Sam and me, but I want you to know that I feel as though the prayers from you home folks and my friends are being heard and I haven't the least fear but that I will some day be back with you folks.
I can say that I have been on no man's land. I know you think that it is dangerous to stick your head out at any time, but it isn't. I just go around at leisure and look over the embankment across no man's land and not even a shot. Oh, we have to dodge the big shells every now and then. I claim to be some dodger and slider, having had such short time to practice.
I'm going to send you a little souvenir handkerchief which I bought in one of the little towns that isn't but a few miles back of the firing lines. It isn't anything very nice, and is only a present. I will send Mattie and Emma one in the next letter I write them and tell Edna that I will send her one or something else later.
We are having lovely weather and I know it isn't near as hot here as it is there. Tell all hello, and that I am fine and dandy and fat as a pig.
Your loving son,
Oscar.
NOTES: Oscar D. Joslin was serving in the medical department in France with the 355th Infantry. He has two brothers also serving in the military. He was born on February 9, 1889 and died on August 6, 1973. He is buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery in Sedalia, Missouri. His military headstone identifies him as an Arkansas Pvt. serving in the US Army during WWI.
TRANSCRIBED BY LAEL HARROD
August 14, 1918.
Dear Mother:
No doubt you are thinking me dead by this time after having told Mattie of me being in the front line trenches. No, I'm just as safe and sound as I was when I went up there and I believe I am getting fatter all the time.
At the present I am back in a rest camp after having served my first stay in the trenches. It's a great old game and one is in a position that eh actually knows that he has a chance to do his bit and I feel that we "medics" are of more importance than we ever get credit for, but now we are getting a glad hand from most all the line men and they have come to the conclusion that we are one of the boys and taking a bigger chance than they are, as we haven't any kind of protection at all. We used to go by the name of "pill rollers" and now it is all the way from sergeant to lieutenant doctors, etc.
Some of the boys in coimng in the infirmary for different little ailments will pop their heels together and say, "Sir, I have an awfully bad headache," etc. I'm only a private, just the same as they and I don't care to be anything else if it will take me out of the trenches away from the boys, for I feel more at home there helping them than I would be somewhere else.
Mother, I know you are worrying lots about Sam and me, but I want you to know that I feel as though the prayers from you home folks and my friends are being heard and I haven't the least fear but that I will some day be back with you folks.
I can say that I have been on no man's land. I know you think that it is dangerous to stick your head out at any time, but it isn't. I just go around at leisure and look over the embankment across no man's land and not even a shot. Oh, we have to dodge the big shells every now and then. I claim to be some dodger and slider, having had such short time to practice.
I'm going to send you a little souvenir handkerchief which I bought in one of the little towns that isn't but a few miles back of the firing lines. It isn't anything very nice, and is only a present. I will send Mattie and Emma one in the next letter I write them and tell Edna that I will send her one or something else later.
We are having lovely weather and I know it isn't near as hot here as it is there. Tell all hello, and that I am fine and dandy and fat as a pig.
Your loving son,
Oscar.
NOTES: Oscar D. Joslin was serving in the medical department in France with the 355th Infantry. He has two brothers also serving in the military. He was born on February 9, 1889 and died on August 6, 1973. He is buried in the Crown Hill Cemetery in Sedalia, Missouri. His military headstone identifies him as an Arkansas Pvt. serving in the US Army during WWI.
TRANSCRIBED BY LAEL HARROD