Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1918-05-07
NEWS FROM THE
WARRING DISTRICT

| 0COl WuO Is SSCOnQ
lieutenant with the Headquarters
Company, 26th Inf, A. E. F., France,
| writes interestingly of "over there"
Lieut.. Forster is a nephew of the
late Mrs. Valentine Ringle, who left
Wausau about fifteen years ago. Of
| late he has been with the Kansas
CITY Athletic club, until the time he
went into training at Fort Sheridan.
| He received his commission in that
| training camp, and month later was
sent to France. He has now finished
| three months training cover there
and is battling somewhere on the
] Western front. His letter was dated
March 18th, and is as follows:
my last note was from school.
Right now l am just a few PAGES
back of the front line. Only an hour
| ago l was within two hundred yards
of old Fritzs front line. He saw me
going back out of a communicating
trench and it wasn't long before a
| whiz-bang" busted up the dirt with
in forty yards of me.
did not think | would get so
close to the fuss in such a short time.
We are doing lot of funny things to
| keep the morale high and every
moment occupied. While at school l
bought a half-dozen packages of
radish seed and tucked them in my
bedding roll when we started for the
front. Sunday last while we were
sitting in the tower of a shelled
| church observing some racket that
the French were raising. Fritz sent
a "seVenty-seven" just over my billet
n op6n
went back to see where the baby hit
and the broken ground reminded me
Oh the radish seed. l took a spade,
leVeled off the shell hole a bit and
put in the radish seed. My platoon
| and l are to be here or in this sector
for about six weeks and unless the
| boches drop another pill in that spot
we will have treat before we leave.
Rained all day yesterday and 1 just
| came up from my little garden.
pushed back some of the earth and
found the seed still there. And then
l got a lot of cheer when ! found
| two little patches of the flowers, one
Of each l am enclosing. When the
Germans occupied the place their big
feet must have missed them. The
very spot where l picked them was
not so long ago ''No Mans Land" and
the vicious boche wire is still stand
ing at one end of the yard. l hap
pen to be under the direct orders of
| the colonel of our regiment One of
our guns shot up a boche working
| party yesterday. l observed the shot
| myself and with my glasses could
see them carry a couple of them off.
l reported the incident to the mogul
without any excitement. The colonel
said, as that all you got-two?" We
| caught sniper in an observation post
in tree several hundred meters off
the day before. The tree was rather
high and we knocked him out of there
like an apple. If you ever went
hunting you know what a satisfied
feeling you have when you get your
bird and watch him fall | have
| thirty-two men in my outfit, guns,
eleven mules, saddle horse, bicycle
and motor cycle. Everyone in my
outfit knows when / am mad except
the mules and the cycles. The regi-
ment is made up of a bunch of regu-
| lars, so you can see how hard boiled
some of them are. There's an Irish
sergeant who celebrated st. Patrick's
Day by having a shamrock tatooed in
to his skull. Another has habit of
cutting detonating fuses with his
teeth. The fuse burns 110 feet a
second but he doesn't seem to worry.
| He would fight buzz-saw. When we
go back from the lines I'm going to
take that saddle horse and reconnoiter
about some of these beautiful hills.
According to an order over here,
after an officer is here six months he
may, if chosen by his boss, go back
to the States for several months to
train the men there, and then come
back. Personally l don't want to go
back unless l get a share of glory
out of some big drive and have a
couple of wound stripes on my arm.
l won't feel as though l had done my
part unless 1 had a hand in a big
offensive. The chance may come
I right here for all l know.
Found a Saturday Evening Post
dated December Is, 1917. Don't have
a lot of time to read, but it's a treat
when you do find something. The
Y. NJ. c. A. has huts even this close
to the front line. The Salvation Army
too, is competing with them. At the
Y. M. G. A, you'll usually find an
American woman, and it's great
treat just to hear her voice. Where
the women are attached to branch
they serve hot chocolate, and believt
me, it's good. You can tell the worlC
that the Y is doing great work Over
here. By the time the Knights O
Columbus get going full strength W.
will have a little heaven of comfor
over here. You ought to see how
the men flock to the huts. Abou
the only criticism 1 can make is abou
some of the literature. Can you i'm
agine any "hard egg" like an Amer
lean soldier reading Needlecraft, tn
: Ladies' Home Journal or the Women
..oc, al