New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1916-08-16
REPORTS ON ARMY VARY
Men Write Home OF Conditions A.
They Find Them In The
Sunny South M

! Sunny South
Recent remarks made by the various
men higher up' in the border service
would indicate that some of the scribes
in Texas have been drawing upon their
imaginations for stuff to write home.
At any rate, the officers have severely
censured the men who have written
hard luck stories home and have even
threatened to establish censorship
which will effectually delete everything
that does not just fit in with the ideas of
those in authority. They say all the
fellows who kick are mollycoddles or
trouble makers and while it may be
quite true that the fellows who knew
what they were going to the border for
as rule do not make much of fuss
about their hardships, it does not follow
that there are no hardships existing. 1t
would hardly seem possible that every
newspaper in the Second District would
have word from the various men in the
Minnesota regiments telling of condi-
lions almost identical in letter after
letter unless there were some truth in the
statements made. With a view to
letting the readers of the Review, many
OF whom have men at the front, know
what is being written home by other
members of the Minnesota Regiments,
a number of excerpts are herewith given,
clipped just as they were found in the
papers of the various southern Mime
sofa towns. No one is asked to believe
the tales of woe unless they like and
following these accounts by the boys
will be found an article taken from the
Waconia paper showing that on the
rations they receive the boys ought to
return home fatter than ever, and ever
lastingly glad, we might add, to get some
of mothers cooking to eat.
From Redwood Falls boy:
; 'Have just had little shower and it
is nice and cool now. Went up town
with the Captain this afternoon and
bought some groceries with the money
the Redwood people gave us. That
money surely comes in handy, guess we'd
starve if it wasn't for that. They say
that the u. S. soldier is the best fed in the
world; if so pity the others. However,
we are getting along fine, tomorrow we
have a chicken dinner. We just got
word to send detail of men over to the
Chaplain's tent for mail; we thot it was
funny that it would take more than one
man for it so Archie, Bernard and went
and had to send for reinforcements,
there was all seven of us could carry.
We opened the boxes on the tables and
it was just like Christmas, each man
got box and some boxes for the whole
company. 1t was surely fine and came
right at supper time. Very few ate any
Of the regular mess. I thank you all
for the gum, candy and also for the
stamped envelopes they will come in
handy as it's so hard to carry or keep
stamps. At this writing our Regt.
3rd MINI. has 1856 on the sick list. They
lay it to an issue of bad tomatoes, so to-
day an order came out for US not to use
tomatoes and to boil all drinking water"
From Fairmont man:
We get our supply of drinking water
from the irrigation canal about a mile
from camp. 1t was warm and oily.
The second day in camp we had water
on tap but it was still the same water,
and until we got ice we we're willing to let
Mexico have the whole state of Texas
as far as we were concerned.
We are located about five miles from
Mercedes (Mer-say-des), four and half
miles from the Mexican border and nine
miles from the Gulf. I don't believe we
notice the heat as much now as you do
in Minnesota, although the temperature
is a great deal higher. The breeze from
the Gulf is heavenly. From ten until
two are the hottest hours of the day.
From Fairfax letter:
Since getting settled the boys are
better satisfied with the treatment &C.
corded them; the food is rough but
! plentiful, ice water is provided and rest
allowed during the heat of the day.
Paper, envelopes and stamps are supplied
through the company fund, as we'll as
eatables, to help out the federal ration.
The only kick we have is that the other
companies in the regiment have mo- e
time to themselves. Our captain is
extraordinarily strict and hard worker,
but marked difference is already ap-
parent between the drilling of III" and