The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1918-12-20
FROM A BOY IN FRANCE


The following are extracts fro,. ,
letter written by Corp. Frank Schult;
to his mother just after hostilities a
the front had ceased. Frank has beer
driving an ammunition truck and has
been in the hot of the scrap for some
months:
well, mother, it is over and | guess
there must have been quite a bit OF
celebrating at home when word came
OF the armistice. i am sure you know
nore ;bout the terms agreed upon
than do. but one thing | do know
was tcre or here, Whichever way yo,,
want to call it, when the last gun
was fired. We all thought 1t kind OF
funny that the shooting ceased SO
abruptly. and that Derry must have
become absent minded when he failed
TO throw any shells at the road or our
artillery. We thought it was :nst a
breathing spell while the American
artillery moved up and the Fritzies
moved back. (That was according to
program).
When ] got back on the main road
thought the Frogs had al, gone nuts
or that they had disco, cred a barrel
of cognac or something but when one
hoped on the truck and tried 20 kiss
me and beloved 'fini legune in my
ear about dozen times I began to
think something was up so inquired
around and found that the crowd had
the right dope. don't know what
kind of celebration they had in the
s. 0. s., but there was hot one on
the front here. Talk about Roman
candles and sky rockets on the Fourth
OF July, We sure did set 'em off till
the flares made the sky as light as
day.
There is peculiar feeling attach
ed to this peaceful stuff. When you
drive along the road and expect any
minute to have either 1876 90 off in
your ear, or whiz bang come ami
plunk itself alongside the road, or
want to speed up when you are
around an ammunition dumup well,
when it doesn't happen there seems
to be something lacking. Another
form of entertainment We miss very
much. That is the barracks bag
dropping contest. 1t used to go on
every clear night, and when that ker-
zulnp, ker-zump sound was in the air
it was pretty wise stunt to look up
dug out in case he opened his tail
gate when right above you.
"Well, all that stuff is finished and
the burning question now is when do
we go home? The lord only knows
and am not even xgying to guess,
because peace is not signed yet, and
those who think they will eat Christ
mas dinner with pa and ma are. be-
lieve, doomed to disappointment
"At present am on detached serv-
ice for six weeks with Co. e. You
should have been present at the meet
ing of the members of the old 18th
squad and heard us comparing ex-
periences and "reminiscences of the
times we used to have. Two men,
bers were absent, Woodruff, who is
now lieutenant in the artillery. and
Culmer, who is still in the engineers.
a lieutenant. 1t Is fine to be with
the boys again and is just like home
for the present. Am living in house
now with real chairs, stove, hunks,
all made for us by the Germans who
departed from here SO recently. (NOt
according to program.
Am writing this quite a few days
after the war ended because we were
so busy moving around I could not
write before. Life in Truck has
been one detached service after an
other, but this time I don't mind it
because we came to E company.
Mother, don't let any one tell you
that the Americans did not make the
Dutchman lay down. The Yanks did
that little thing, not all by themselves,
but took the worst part of the line
and made about 80 of the kaiser's
divisions look like 30 cents. And if
the Huns hadn't quit we would have
been camping on the Rhine in a
couple of months anyhow.
81 have been picking up quite a
few souvenirs from dead Germans.
who were still on top of the ground.
SO will be pretty we'll fixed in that
line if I don't lose them.'