TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ASHLEY COUNTY EAGLE DECEMBER 6, 1917 P. 2
Thinking that some might be interested in knowing where the majority of the Ashley County’s drafted boys are now located, how we are getting along in army life, etc., I am taking advantage of the opportunity of writin to the Eagle.
On the morning of November 15th, I was lying on my bunk in Camp Pike taking my peaceful rest, when Lane Blanks came in and said that we were ordered to be ready to leave in fifteen minutes. I told him I would be ready in five.
We boarded the train about noon, there being thirteen coaches, and in all five hundred men.
We saw much of interest on the way. Passed through Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Tenn., and Dalton, Atlanta, and Augusta, Ga.: also a part of Ala., but I was asleep at that time and didn’t see anything.
We have been well fixed here and having a pretty good time, considering we are the army. Camp Jackson is in a few miles of Columbia and we have a chance to go to town several times each week. The first of this week about twenty-five of our Arkansas boys were transferred to Sanantone, Texas, we understand, to go in the aviation corps—Columbus Johnson, of Hamburg, and Roger Mills of Morrell, were among the number. The rest of us wanted to go, but didn’t happen to the luck.
The boys from home have been assigned to various branches—the Infantry, Artillery, Machine Gun, Signal Corps. I haven’t been assigned yet, don’t know what I will get.
Among other things that we boys have learned here in the army, is a number of army songs. Here is a sample--
“Dear army beans, you know I love you, for I eat you every day; Dear army beans, I’m thinking of you when I’m hiking miles away.
Mosquitoes bite down in the wild-woods, when I’m thinking most of you;
Dear army beans, I smell you cooking, and I’m coming back to you.”
This Thanksgiving morning found we boys, that is those who are in the barracks that I am in, in quarantine, it having been put on last night, and it has been raining besides. Some of the boys have been very blue and out of heart, and I think a little home sick, but I haven’t worried at all; why should I? I have had plenty to employ my time, for I am not yet too far away to write to home folks or to the dear little girls back there. And then at noon we had a lunch consisting of roast beef, spuds, peach pie, coffee and bread. And at six o’clock we are going to have Thanksgiving turkey and all that
We can, or will eat this dinner and think of the Thanksgiving dinners we have eaten not long since, with home folks and friends, and hope and pray that before many more Thanksgiving days have passed that we boys will be at home again.
But why should we boys have any fear of the future? He that cares for the sparrows in their flight, will also send His protecting angels to hover around the soldier boy who calls on Him in time of need.
Your friend,
E. L. Walker,
20th Co.,
5th Training Bri., Camp Jackson, S.C.
NOTES: Earnest Levi Walker was born in 1887 and died in 1954. He is buried in the Trafalgar Cemetery in Hamburg, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY STEPHANE LECOINTE
Thinking that some might be interested in knowing where the majority of the Ashley County’s drafted boys are now located, how we are getting along in army life, etc., I am taking advantage of the opportunity of writin to the Eagle.
On the morning of November 15th, I was lying on my bunk in Camp Pike taking my peaceful rest, when Lane Blanks came in and said that we were ordered to be ready to leave in fifteen minutes. I told him I would be ready in five.
We boarded the train about noon, there being thirteen coaches, and in all five hundred men.
We saw much of interest on the way. Passed through Memphis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Tenn., and Dalton, Atlanta, and Augusta, Ga.: also a part of Ala., but I was asleep at that time and didn’t see anything.
We have been well fixed here and having a pretty good time, considering we are the army. Camp Jackson is in a few miles of Columbia and we have a chance to go to town several times each week. The first of this week about twenty-five of our Arkansas boys were transferred to Sanantone, Texas, we understand, to go in the aviation corps—Columbus Johnson, of Hamburg, and Roger Mills of Morrell, were among the number. The rest of us wanted to go, but didn’t happen to the luck.
The boys from home have been assigned to various branches—the Infantry, Artillery, Machine Gun, Signal Corps. I haven’t been assigned yet, don’t know what I will get.
Among other things that we boys have learned here in the army, is a number of army songs. Here is a sample--
“Dear army beans, you know I love you, for I eat you every day; Dear army beans, I’m thinking of you when I’m hiking miles away.
Mosquitoes bite down in the wild-woods, when I’m thinking most of you;
Dear army beans, I smell you cooking, and I’m coming back to you.”
This Thanksgiving morning found we boys, that is those who are in the barracks that I am in, in quarantine, it having been put on last night, and it has been raining besides. Some of the boys have been very blue and out of heart, and I think a little home sick, but I haven’t worried at all; why should I? I have had plenty to employ my time, for I am not yet too far away to write to home folks or to the dear little girls back there. And then at noon we had a lunch consisting of roast beef, spuds, peach pie, coffee and bread. And at six o’clock we are going to have Thanksgiving turkey and all that
We can, or will eat this dinner and think of the Thanksgiving dinners we have eaten not long since, with home folks and friends, and hope and pray that before many more Thanksgiving days have passed that we boys will be at home again.
But why should we boys have any fear of the future? He that cares for the sparrows in their flight, will also send His protecting angels to hover around the soldier boy who calls on Him in time of need.
Your friend,
E. L. Walker,
20th Co.,
5th Training Bri., Camp Jackson, S.C.
NOTES: Earnest Levi Walker was born in 1887 and died in 1954. He is buried in the Trafalgar Cemetery in Hamburg, Arkansas.
TRANSCRIBED BY STEPHANE LECOINTE