The Alaska daily empire., 1918-02-23
Former Alaskan Says He Is Finding Plenty Things to Argue About
 Over There.
IS SOMEWHAT LONELY
Says That the British and the French Know What They Are
 Fighting For.

IL. r. way, WIlllnS to sidney l. Carter of the Road Commission in Alaska, gives some interesting obser- vations about army life at the front. Way was formerly with the Road Commission in Alaska and by cur ious coincident the censor of his let ter was A. F. Oles, another member of the Road Comm;ss:on, personally known to the one sending and re ceiving the letter
 Way is with the Engineering Corps in France and writes about being busy every minute, about having re ceived a letter, and reading matter and continues:
 The soldiers are not in need of near as much reading matter as some people in the States think I have never seen so much tobacco in all my life and it is coming in faster than when we smoke it. When we first got here we could not get any thing but French brands, and it is pretty poor stuff, and during that time l saw fellow pay one good American dollar for two sacks of 'bull-but things are changed the things we enjoy the most are the letters.
 Our mail has been very slow here the last month, and I haven't received my Christmas box from home, and still besides I still have three more coming. The Christmas mail here was heavy-entire ship loads with nothing but mail It's quite an item and I'm afraid next year, if the war is still on, that we will be limited along that line So far I have received besides your fruit cake, three pounds of candy hree pairs of home-knit socks (made " the best little girl in the world wo pair of wristlets, carton of cig
 rettes, much bull and pipe tobacco never got anything like that amount
 efore in my life-and four packages
 till on the way
 We had a good Christmas dinner
 nd I was lucky enough to spear a Christmas supper with a French fam ly. Yes, l love a real home over lere, of a young couple and they
 peak English. They are very in
 eresting and couldn't possibly be
 nder I put in a great deal of my
 pare time before their fireplace
 oasting chestnuts and arguing.
 And speaking about arguing, it
 eens queer that 1 should be tan
 led up in this war, the war that We
 }l'led over in your little hut two ears ago, and we couldn't settle il here, so I had to come over here
 nd get the real facts in the case which I am sorry I can't tell you bout. but you will have to agree
 ecause l am here on the job, gath ering up good dope just fresh iron
 he battlefields, and l am at the iame time reading our wonderful newspaper
 q was in England long enough tt find out what they thought about the war and what they are fighting for 1 and the same in France, and I know what I am fighting for-just wha
 resident Wilson said But all these opinions do not agree, and what { Hmble we are going to have wheI we threjh this all out in a peace
 }nfesence Some argument then
 Yes it's ell interesting, but hor rible, and I hope it will soon be over and my opinion is that it will We have much to 2rS-c about il the army the principal subject i war, but it's relative value of the diff i ferent divisions Of CT own army, if close competitor Of course we never include the regulars, but let ] 2 bunch of engineers, railway men 1 Marines, National Guard, National i Army CT reserves get together and there is sure to be something doing | and where l am stationed we have 1 all Of these. Great life. You see we cannot argue with the other | troops here. because we only speak English. and speaking of other troops 1 I've seen them all. Some bunch "ue Allies" But the funniest sight is tc see our own negro troops run across their cousins from Africa. I heard one of them say one day. Who am 1 that niggher with the iron bar?' i "The weather where we are is very much like Seattle. but not quite i so much rain. The people here are very interesting, and all in all I am enjoying the war as best l can so 1 far from home"