Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1916-1918, 1917-02-16
TAKES PART IN
LITTLE SCRAPS
WRITES AN INTERESTING LETTER
OF THE LIFE IN SANTO
DOMINGO.

JOnn LAMBERT, formerly OF OtIumWd
now in the U. S. marine corps service
in Santo Domingo, has written his
father, M. A. Lambert, 1873 South Iowa
avenue, very interesting letter about
that country. He describes several
little scraps In which he took part
but says that he does not anticipate
more trouble. He says that the natives
are being brought to respect Spring
field rifles and machine guns, even II
they do not respect the men using
them. His letter follows:
S. F. de Macoris, Santo Domingo
January 8, 1917.
My Dear Father - will try and
write you few lines in answer to your
letter of December Is, which l receiv'
ed yesterday. was glad to hear from
you once more. I am we'll at present
and trust this will find you the same
We are having fine weather here now
the best have seen since coming to
the island. There has been very little
rain for two months. The days are
warm but the nights are cool enough to
sleep under couple of blankets.
hope you had good dinner and a
good time on Thanksgiving and Christ.
mas. Our dinner for Thanksgiving did
not amount to much for we were
where we could not get supplies. But
for Christmas we Jared pretty we'll. On
Thanksgiving the natives kept us so
busy we hardly had time to eat the
little we had.
We left San Diego. Calf, June 6 and
went by rail to New Orleans, and from
there finished our journey on the o. S.
S. Hancock We arrived at Monte
Cristo, Santo Domingo, June %. We
stayed there until June &c and started
on our eighty-fve mile march to this
place. 1t took us eleven days to make
the eighty-five miles, arriving here
July 6. We had six battles with the
natives on the way, one lasted two
hours, one about one and half hours
and another about an hour. The other
three lasted only a few minutes a
We had three men killed and seven
teen wounded and one of the men kill
ed was very near me when he fell.
I don't know how many OF the rebels
were killed, perhaps forty or fifty. We
expected to have trouble when we took
this town but they moved out as we
came in and we took possession with
out firing a shot.
If they had made stand they would
have got lot Of us for they have a
pretty good old fort here. though their
rifles don't amount to much, being old
timers, but most of them are fifty cal
iber and shoot some awful slugs or
lead
AS YOU know l was guard at the
worlds fair in Frisco for nearly year
and I can tell you there is lot OF dif-
ference in soldering on the fair
grounds and soldering In the jungles
Of tropical country. There are lots
Of tropical fruit here, but we have to
be very careful about eating 1t. We
have very poor water here, most OF 1t
being boiled before we drink 1t and we
often suffer for water.
You say in your letter that you get
the news Of our movements through
the papers in the states. Yes you get
the news there long before we get it
here. It is almost impossible to learn
anything here that takes place out OF
sight. You mention the little scrap,
we we're in the last Of November and
first of December. Yes, our company
had three little scraps with the natives
at that time, one on the night OF
Thanksgiving and two on the night OF
December 2. None of them lasted but
a few minutes. but were very interest
ing while they lasted.
On the night before Thanksgiving
there were about twenty-five natives
in an old fort and prison combined,
They had pretended to be friendly ana
the officers did not find out that they