TRANSCRIBED FROM THE COURIER INDEX OCTOBER 4, 1918 P. 9
Dear Mr. Farrar:
I will try to unravel some of my ups and downs since I left you the seventh day of March. Many times have I wished that I was back with you, but wishes don’t get me there.
This is the worst war I have ever been in, but if I get out all together I will be much the wiser for the round.
I suppose Mack kept you posted about me when I was in the states, so I will take up the trip from your side of the Atlantic.
I can’t describe how I felt when we pulled out and the coast of the old U.S. began to fade away, but you can rest assured that I will not feel the same way when I see that coast again. The ocean is a whole lot bigger than it looks on the map, and I don’t wonder at Columbus’ men wanting to pitch him overboard and return home, for it gets old riding day and night and seeing nothing but water. The stuff would be all right if it would be still, but it is all the time quivvering like it is scared. I think the submarines have gotten it all stirred up.
We wore life preservers all the time on the ship. They fit around our necks so if we have to take to the water our heads would stay up. I am of the opinion that we had to wear them to keep from getting mashed on the boat, for we were jammed up like canned goods in a cross roads store, and the life preservers were soft so we couldn’t get mashed.
I kept everything I got “on my stomach” and could have kept more. I wish you could have been at Liverpool when we came off the boat, and heard the band touch up Dixie, you would have forgotten your seventy some-odd years.
England is a nice country and I want to see some more of it before I come home. I would enjoy myself more for I can talk to the people, but here I can’t “parlevoo” this language. I went to a French store to buy a wash pan and “being naturally bright” I thought I could make them comre (French for understand(, but oh, my, the girl clerk got down half the stuff in the store before she “compred.”
We were at a place in this country away back from the lines for three weeks, and believe me it was labor there. I was glad to get away, for I had rather take chances on getting shot than work six and a half days out of seven.
I have moved several times lately and if we keep it up will soon see all of this country. At present I am stationed right up close to our front line trenches. I have been here about a week. Three of us have quarters and no boss. We are away from our company and eating with another company, and walk about as far as I did in Marianna for our meals. It is quite different here, though, for we have to carry our gas masks and rifles, a hundred rounds of ammunition and wear our tin hats. And then it is different when we get the eats for we get bread or hardtack and stew. They have an old pot that they can’t cook anything in but stew. Tell Mrs. Farrar that it would do me a hundred dollars worth of good to see a biscuit, and make it two hundred for a juicy sweet potato.
I am in the best health that I have ever been in. I weighed 161 in England and believe me I would beat that now. This life and getting rid of my appendix is the reason, and not the eats. I will help you smoke your pipe when I get back.
I have the easiest job that I ever had, but it is dangerous, for there is only one explosion between me and eternity.
Tell Mack to bring an adding machine along so he can count the bullets that come out of a machine gun. They make about as much noise as a hundred cackling hens on Sunday morning when you want to sleep.
It is great to watch the anti-aircraft guns trying to hit an airplane. There is something doing in the noise line when the heavy artillery eats something that upsets its stomach. Believe me, they make some camouflage thunder. My work is not as dangerous as the infantry, but it is too dangerous to get any more life insurance. The gas is the worst thing that is used, for you are gone if it gets to you before you get your gas mask on. They say that one sure suffers from the stuff. Lice and fleas are plentiful. I am having some rounds with the fleas now, and guess in due time I will have a skirmish with the lice. If I get them I will come home and sleep with Mack, for he would make juicy pickings for them.
Guess you have noticed that business is picking up since “I” got over here. We will administer the knock out drops to Fritz by this time next year.
We three have started us a dug out so we can dodge Fritz when he starts to peddling fruit from the air. We work a while and get tired, (or lazy, for the other guys have the hook worm as bad as I have) and figure the war will soon be over and — well, we hear something that makes us change our minds quicker than a woman changes hers.
I have seen some of the towns that have been visited by this war, and, take it from me, this business is all but a picnic. I am taking it in my usual happy-go-lucky way, because nothing is gained by a long face and a “wish I was back home” mood. If worse comes to worse, it will be for a good cause, otherwise I will have a rich experience.
It will be a great day when the boys come back and shake off the military stuff, for we are going through hardships that we never dreamed of before war called us. War makes men fearless and here is one that will be content when he gets out. I have a different idea of life and what it means to live, and when I get back home I will enjoy living to such an extent that there will be no more going mad over business for me.
I must quit for this time. Best wishes to all. Your friend.
“SAM”
NOTES: Alfred G. Samuel is writing from France to his friend, J. P. Farrar. On one government document William C. Jennings of Marianna, Arkansas is listed as a friend and next of kin. He was born on February 11, 1891 and died on Febrary 2, 1974. He is buried in the Cedar Heights Cemetery in Marianna. He enlisted in the military on March 7, 1918 and was discharged on April 17, 1919. He departed for France on June 30, 1918 from New York, NY onboard the Mauretania. He was a private in the 37th Engineers, Co. F, 2nd Battalion. He departed from St. Nazaire, France on March 8, 1919 onboard the Princess Motika.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS
Dear Mr. Farrar:
I will try to unravel some of my ups and downs since I left you the seventh day of March. Many times have I wished that I was back with you, but wishes don’t get me there.
This is the worst war I have ever been in, but if I get out all together I will be much the wiser for the round.
I suppose Mack kept you posted about me when I was in the states, so I will take up the trip from your side of the Atlantic.
I can’t describe how I felt when we pulled out and the coast of the old U.S. began to fade away, but you can rest assured that I will not feel the same way when I see that coast again. The ocean is a whole lot bigger than it looks on the map, and I don’t wonder at Columbus’ men wanting to pitch him overboard and return home, for it gets old riding day and night and seeing nothing but water. The stuff would be all right if it would be still, but it is all the time quivvering like it is scared. I think the submarines have gotten it all stirred up.
We wore life preservers all the time on the ship. They fit around our necks so if we have to take to the water our heads would stay up. I am of the opinion that we had to wear them to keep from getting mashed on the boat, for we were jammed up like canned goods in a cross roads store, and the life preservers were soft so we couldn’t get mashed.
I kept everything I got “on my stomach” and could have kept more. I wish you could have been at Liverpool when we came off the boat, and heard the band touch up Dixie, you would have forgotten your seventy some-odd years.
England is a nice country and I want to see some more of it before I come home. I would enjoy myself more for I can talk to the people, but here I can’t “parlevoo” this language. I went to a French store to buy a wash pan and “being naturally bright” I thought I could make them comre (French for understand(, but oh, my, the girl clerk got down half the stuff in the store before she “compred.”
We were at a place in this country away back from the lines for three weeks, and believe me it was labor there. I was glad to get away, for I had rather take chances on getting shot than work six and a half days out of seven.
I have moved several times lately and if we keep it up will soon see all of this country. At present I am stationed right up close to our front line trenches. I have been here about a week. Three of us have quarters and no boss. We are away from our company and eating with another company, and walk about as far as I did in Marianna for our meals. It is quite different here, though, for we have to carry our gas masks and rifles, a hundred rounds of ammunition and wear our tin hats. And then it is different when we get the eats for we get bread or hardtack and stew. They have an old pot that they can’t cook anything in but stew. Tell Mrs. Farrar that it would do me a hundred dollars worth of good to see a biscuit, and make it two hundred for a juicy sweet potato.
I am in the best health that I have ever been in. I weighed 161 in England and believe me I would beat that now. This life and getting rid of my appendix is the reason, and not the eats. I will help you smoke your pipe when I get back.
I have the easiest job that I ever had, but it is dangerous, for there is only one explosion between me and eternity.
Tell Mack to bring an adding machine along so he can count the bullets that come out of a machine gun. They make about as much noise as a hundred cackling hens on Sunday morning when you want to sleep.
It is great to watch the anti-aircraft guns trying to hit an airplane. There is something doing in the noise line when the heavy artillery eats something that upsets its stomach. Believe me, they make some camouflage thunder. My work is not as dangerous as the infantry, but it is too dangerous to get any more life insurance. The gas is the worst thing that is used, for you are gone if it gets to you before you get your gas mask on. They say that one sure suffers from the stuff. Lice and fleas are plentiful. I am having some rounds with the fleas now, and guess in due time I will have a skirmish with the lice. If I get them I will come home and sleep with Mack, for he would make juicy pickings for them.
Guess you have noticed that business is picking up since “I” got over here. We will administer the knock out drops to Fritz by this time next year.
We three have started us a dug out so we can dodge Fritz when he starts to peddling fruit from the air. We work a while and get tired, (or lazy, for the other guys have the hook worm as bad as I have) and figure the war will soon be over and — well, we hear something that makes us change our minds quicker than a woman changes hers.
I have seen some of the towns that have been visited by this war, and, take it from me, this business is all but a picnic. I am taking it in my usual happy-go-lucky way, because nothing is gained by a long face and a “wish I was back home” mood. If worse comes to worse, it will be for a good cause, otherwise I will have a rich experience.
It will be a great day when the boys come back and shake off the military stuff, for we are going through hardships that we never dreamed of before war called us. War makes men fearless and here is one that will be content when he gets out. I have a different idea of life and what it means to live, and when I get back home I will enjoy living to such an extent that there will be no more going mad over business for me.
I must quit for this time. Best wishes to all. Your friend.
“SAM”
NOTES: Alfred G. Samuel is writing from France to his friend, J. P. Farrar. On one government document William C. Jennings of Marianna, Arkansas is listed as a friend and next of kin. He was born on February 11, 1891 and died on Febrary 2, 1974. He is buried in the Cedar Heights Cemetery in Marianna. He enlisted in the military on March 7, 1918 and was discharged on April 17, 1919. He departed for France on June 30, 1918 from New York, NY onboard the Mauretania. He was a private in the 37th Engineers, Co. F, 2nd Battalion. He departed from St. Nazaire, France on March 8, 1919 onboard the Princess Motika.
TRANSCRIBED BY LINDA MATTHEWS