The Tupelo journal., 1917-09-28
TWO LETTERS FROM
LEE COUNTY BOYS
ON ACTIVE SERVICE
With the American Expeditionary
Force.

well and hope this will find you all
well. Mother, this is the prettiest
country | have ever seen-the Eng
lish people are far different from
what | thought they were, we don't
see and converse enough with them
in America to find out their real
feeling for us. They are our own
people any way and will do anything
lin their power to show us their
brotherly love- They are ready to
show us around to the Memorial Art
Galleries and Museums, and hundreds
of them had to be held back by the
Police when we were on Parade
march. They wanted to shake hands
with us and invite us to come to their
homes any time we can get leave and
they would be glad to show us good
time The more | see of them the
more | get to love them and under
stand their true regard and comrade
feeling they have for us. The bet
ter class of people welcome US any
where we go.
Well, mother, listen, we have done
something that no other Foreign
Nation has ever done in London,
England. We were received by the
King and Queen and others of the
Royal Family and we had our own
flag afloat We are the second for
eign troops that ever marched in
London; the others were in the year
F.. 1868, or over four hundred years be-
fore America was discovered and
they had their guns sealed and were
not allowed to fly their flag and the
guns they had were captured and are
now in London. Our guns were not
sealed and we had Old Glory fly
ing. There are some grand scenes
in London.
I would not take anything for the
honor that was conferred upon us in
regard to the 13 mile parade which
| was in. Mother, am in the first
SQUAD and Number Four man in the
rear rank directly behind the Drum
Corps, therefore, you wont have any
trouble in finding me when they show
the March Parade in the movies. AS
soon as | can | will get a newspaper
photo of the March and mark my
likeness and position in the column so
YOU can't fail to see me in the movies.
You can have the manager at Tupelo
to phone you when it will be shown
there so you can go and see 1T for
it is the greatest honor ever conferred
on any Foreign Army, and | don't
think we could ever have any honor
so great and royal conferred on US
unless we are invited to parade in
Paris, or that after we cross into
Germany we are permitted to march
before his Majesty again and crush
Germany, and we will so | heard a
commissioned officer in the British
Army say-He was sure America
and the Allies would soon bring the
war to victorious end. / will close
for tonight and finish when | get
chance to write again.
Thursday Morning.
| will finish my letter this morn
ing. | am feeling as good as could
be expected after marching as far
as we did yesterday. We are not do
ing any duty today. They are letting
us rest. | am going to send you one
of the English papers which has an
account of our march yesterday. |
| haven't been able to get paper
that had a picture of the head OF the
column in it. Anyway ! will tell you
my place in the March-was number
four man in the rear rank squad
This is fine country. We marched
in the grounds around the Bucklng-
ham Palace and were served lunch
in the enclosure after we had been
reviewed by King George and his
Queen.
Listen, | learned that we could
have our folks at home send us to-
bacco and other necessities and it
wouldn't cost any duty either on this
side or the other. 1t will only cost
the parcel post rate to Foreign coun-
tries, / ara going to look for some
of them to send me some Prince Al
bert smoking tobacco and some Star
Navy chewing tobacro. | am going
to have part of my money sent to
YOU all as soon as they get ready TO-
handle allowances for can get
along nicely with about $40. per
month.
The English War Department sure
served us fine breakfast yesterday,
and they also gave us a nice lunch