Norwich bulletin., 1918-01-03
SOLDIERS AND SAIL ORS What Eastern Connections Boys Are Doing In Various Branches of the Service.
Leslie T. Gager Meets Norwich Boy
 E in France.

Leslie T. Gager Meets Norwich Boy in France.
 Leslie Tracy Gager, a Norwich boy who is with the Medical corps in France, and who went across with the first Of General Pershing's troops, has written an interesting letter to his grandparents, MT. and Mrs. Charles A. Gager. The letter follows:
 My Dear Grandparents. This is twS days before Thanksgiving at. Base Hospital IS, of the American Expedi- tionary forces in France. Snow fell last night and the country around us was covered with a layer of white when first calp' blew in the darkness at 6 o'clock this morning, and woke our barracks to another day of activity. After looking in on my ward, and finding that all was well, l took short after breakfast walk up through the woods, and the trees and the fields and the snow covering all looked not so far different from what the Burdicit road used to look as I came up into the country in the ol6 days. But we are doing far differ ent things
 When I last wrote, which now seems almost years ago. so much has hap pened since, was over near the coast of western France. After only a few days in that pleasant river valley, 1 was sent ahead with twenty other men to our base hospital almost across France and up behind one of the fronts, from which we can still hear often the looming of the heavy guns although that canfionading is now I:frequently mingled with our own ar | tillery fire from practice nearer to us The months have been. busy ones fes us in the hospital and well as for those I in the field Personally, I worked 1 two months on the surgical service; have now only finished two Siore or the medical side, both full Of valuable experience and intensely interesting from the human. as well as the medi- tai, point of view as we see come and gos iflfantrymen. aviators, ambulance 1 drivers back from Verdun, engineers signal corps men, occasionally French. men, EngIishmen. Scotchmen: men O. every description from everywhere Most of them We have returned tt duty; some we have had to send bacl 1 to America. a few we have lost-the! have died for their country and lie i;
 the little cemetery across from th'
 hospital beside Al5eriars and Russians l and French and English. Anon:
 them, has been two of our own littl'
 hand of workers. one of my fellow stu dents and the other one of the nurses Besides our own full days and oft en nights now for the surgeons, W have had the opportunity to see no only to see the development begun an still being carried, on, of great hos pital center. but all activities in tn 1 other branches. We have seen the ar rival Of infantry and of engineer; 1 have seen barracE -bnilding and trellkh digging and bayonet drill and firearm
 and grenade practice: I have visite
 aviatisa fields and talked with ayiators T French. English and American. B
 being able to master a little Frencl
 have rarnb.ed around this part c
 the country pretty comfortably an Ianrecahly got acquainted with "cu}
 tiyataurs," "professeurs' and lot {
 neople in all walks of life in a goo
 many of the surrounding villages. ; number of excellent cooks. too. ar
 as a private in the army have come t
 nave' a rice appreciation of certai
 aspects of life-especially of what
 man can get along without and b fairly req sonably happy.
 My health remains excellent. as W
 are afforded n substantial. thoug 1 uiCL Uy Out IS luncie (Saml and a comfortable bed t sleeD in. in a barracks that sheds raj
 perfectly. The days slip by and nov it is close on half year that " sailed down New York haroor Con
 transport that has since been torpe . 1 doed). but we are just getting read7
 t''is winter to begin our real work i the spring.
 was surprised the other day whe Winton Robinson walked into the offic of the ward to see me He is with Massachusetts Machine Gun compan! stationed in the next village below u It is. fine to see anyone from fiori. and he is the first