The Lamar register., 1918-10-23
Letter From Ross Downing.
Somewhere in France
Sept. 20, 1918.

Dear Father.-
have had an awful time to find a
place to write letter and also the
time, but | talked the 1t. into letting
me into the office this afternoon and
to keep in trim on the typewriter |
thought would write it that way.
| have been pretty busy the last
week, stringing telephone lines to
various parts of town, and | will be
putting in phones this week | guess.
There are five other fellows, and
myself out of the Bn. left here to put
up, and maintain these lines, but ii
is hard to say how long we will stay
here.
The rest of the Bn. went on up to
the front, or near the front where they
are awaiting their turn to go over-the-
top with the boys when they take
Metz.
This Censor proposition has got
my goat | can't begin to tell you
what | would like to, or the things
that would interest you most, but !
will tell you all about it when ! get
back, and fully expect to be back
this time next year.
The boys in the trenches say "Heav-
en-, hell or home by Christmas" but it
is almost an impossibility to wind this
up so quickly as that, but we all have
our hopes that it won't last any long
er than that.
Have you ever received my Liberty
Bond? | haven't heard word from
any one since we first landed, surely
. you have gotten some of my letters,
or cards.
| would sure love to hear from you
again so / would know if you were re-
ceiving letters from me or if they
were being stopped by the censor or
sinking in the bottom of the ocean.
We are billited very comfortably in
an old barn, and we have lots of cloth
ing and blankets so there is no need
of you worrying about me, and we eat
as well as could be expected under the
conditions; you see everything we eat
is shipped into this country from home
and they don't put much stock in fruit
or the like for men to fight on but
you can bet the boys that go over the
top start on full stomach.
There is another organization in the
U. s. A. that | used to laugh at and
think that they We're a set of beg
different, and that is the Salvation
gars, but whom, l find is very much
Army. The men that have come back
from the front say that this branch
of the service (for that is what they
are termed here) is right up in the
front line trench, and when they go
over the top on a rading expedition
or even to the worst of the raids the
Salvation Army Lassies are on the jot
with the hot coffee and doughnuts.
If they are killed they think that
is the way the Almighty intended them
to die, and the men say that it is an
impossible task to keep them from GO
ing right over with them.
There is a little French girl here
looking over my shoulder trying tc
figure out the system of the typewrit-
er. The French say they are up-to-
date, and that the Americans are one
hundred years ahead of them, and il
is the truth for there is not bath
tub in the town and if there is q
sewer of any kind l have not beer
able to find it.
Our bathing facilities are at present
a lake that is about a mile fro mtowr
and one that all of the women of the
town use as wash tub, but it serves
very well until the government sees
fit to put in some sort of bath house
anyway we get a thrill out of bathing
in front of the female population, but
they don't seem to mind at all.
Tell mother that she can consider
herself lucky that she has washing
machine, for the woman of France has
a board on the bank of the most con-