The Glenwood post., 1918-09-14
INTERESTING LETTER
FROM ALFRED coWLRa
Still Here, Aug. 7, 1918.


time since l have written you, but you
will have to forgive me this time as 1
have been having so much excitement
and have been in no place for writing
mail during most of that time, but
lately L have heard from all of you
and also got a roll of papers couple
days ago and do wish you could have
seen us reading them. l got them just
before long hike, but l. tied them onto
my pack and when we stopped for
supper they were passed along most
of the company sitting by the roadside,
and the Denver Post happened to have
accounts of couple Of battles in them
that were quite interesting for us to
read as we knew all about them, and
then as the marines came along l gave
them one with the account of the fight
in it and they were sure pleased to see
it in a U. S. paper. | would Ihave
liked to see some of the news and the
attitude of the public there the past
month since the accounts of the push
have been arriving there, and I wonder
what they think of us over there now.
Well, our division has made quite
reputation, believe me, and have been
cited in few months, more than all
but very few French and English
divisions in the time of the war.
Several of our company have been
cited and mentioned personally, but
Son not yet but maybe soon, who
knows,
Yes, we have had a long siege of it
and have. not missed much of the
pushes. One whole day it was not
much more than a foot race for us try
ing to catch up with Fritz for little
scrap, but he left everything, from
personal belongings and guns and pock-
ct books and packs on up to the heavy
artillery, behind him and guess he is
still going except hell of a bunch
who couldn t outrun us, and wish you
could have seen the prisoners coming
in all day; one pretty good one we
saw was guard bringing in several
prisoners and while coming through
the field he was hit by shrapnel; well,
the prisoners just picked him up and
took him to our first aid station. An
other case where one of our men was
wounded and a couple of Fritzies came
on him and dressed his wounds ana
then carried him partly back to our
lines and directed him to his own
lines, so you can see that some of them
are quite human, and among the pris-
oners you meet many who can talk
pretty good English. One of them,
pretty high officer, was leading
bunch of them down the road and as
he got right near me he hollered at the
guard, "The men say you are walking
them too fast The guard winked at
us and said, "Guess I will double time
them ways, but don't know how to
say it in Dutch.'
! may be going beyond my limit with
the censor, but l have so much would
like to tell you that when | get start
ed it is hard to stop. Some of the
sights we have seen l would give a
great deal for photos of them. For
instance, large open field with
French cavalry on all sides as far as
one could see and then ahead of them
one could see any number of tanks
creeping along. Oh, some of the sights
are grand, but of course with them are
mixed some pretty hard sights, but one
becomes used to it after time /.
Our company is certainly changed
and we hardly know our own any more
when we are lined up for show, etc.
AS for fear, I don't think most of the
men know it as I have seen them lit
orally shot to pieces still joshing and
joking about it.
l thought I told you that l had re-
ceived the birthday box o. K, and en-
joyed it to the limit, and when it was
Mothers day, well, I couldn't have
written as much as I wanted to, but I
did remember it on that day. Then l
wrote the Fourth, but it was rather
warm place where wrote from.
VS. Just lately we had chance to see
couple of big towns for q few short
hours, and say, after being stuck in
the woods as long as we have, it sure
seemed fine as we hardly saw the sun
for days at time, but it didn't last
long as we must keep moving and be-
tween auto trucks and freight trains
and hiking we have gone some in this
country.