Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1918-06-26
Mr.. and Mrs. III. q, Cummings Re-
ceive Interesting ~ ter From
Son at Camp ne South
Carolina <
10 IN THE SHADE y
IN THAT SECTION
Been in Charge of Nineteen Men,
All Foreigners. Gets Badly
Twisted Tongue in Calling
the Roll
Camp Jackson, S. G.
June 16, 1918.

Dear Folks:
Well it has been a week since I
wrote to you and nearly two weeks
since l heard from you, and in that
time l have been having a very in
teresting time in a way. We are
located here in the desert, about
six miles out of Columbia, which
is the capital of the state of South
Carolina, and it sure is one fierce
place. The sand is about four in
ches deep and gets into our shoes
and the wind blows it in our eyes.
1t is also hot, has been around
110 in the shade ever since we ar
rived here last Thursday. But the
nights cool off pretty good, that Is
so that you have to cover UP with
a blanket around three o'clock in
the morning. In this camp there is
about 10000 troops, all drafted
men, and l have never seen such a
mob in my life; all nationalities,
also some colored troops. We got
here about three o'clock Thursday
afternoon and were checked up
several times and distributed in
small punches to different barracks; /;
seventeen in the bunch that are in
the same barracks with me. This
bunch we got in with are all from
Massachusetts and have only been
in the service a little over a week.
Most of them are Italians or Greeks.
with quite few toughs from Bos-
ton. Most of them can't read or
write and a number of them can
neither talk or understand the
English language.
The day after we got here our
bunch had an examination in read
ing, writing, spelling, dictation, low
and high arithmetic, simple algebra,
history and geography. That was
Friday. Yesterday we lined UP and
they picked out the non-coms and
OFT of the seventeen in our bunch
all but three got non-com. / got
a-sergeantship. OF course this is
not permanent unless we make
good, but don't see why we won't,
as the rest don't know anything.
This camp is made up of field
artillery, heavy and light. The
light is horse and the heavy is
motorized. We are in motor
unit, but have no equipment yet.
They have lot of light field pieces
and horses. The heavy is nothing
less than six inch guns. do not
know what they are going to do
with us men that went through the
training schools! Nearly all the
1900 men from Iowa that was at
the different schools in the country
are here now think that they
have not got a place for US, but
will transfer us out in small bunches
as place opens up, as this whole
camp is nothing but replacement
depot. The Iowa bunch get to-
gether every day. They have a
place down in the woods and have
a regular reunion, and If you ever
saw a disgusted bunch you ought
to see them. l think that we have
every reason in the world to kick,
to feel blue, but 1t is going to do
no good, so l try to feel good and
and smile, although 1t is hard when
we think back few short months,
or even weeks when we were at
Madison. We sure had it soft there,
water here is pretty pink, it is so
warm. Just so you can see how
warm 1t is we take shower out Of
the same pipe that we drink out of,
and can walk under the shower,
stand for an hour and not even
feel cool when we come out, but 1t
is better than ice. cold in this
climate, although we have ice water
for mess once in a while. Our
food here isn't bad, but 1t don't
compare with what we got at Madi-
son, and we get it in regular army
style. We all have our mess kits of
one cup and one pan with a cover
and knife, fork and spoon. We pass
around by the kitchen and get what
we want and then sit down at the
table and eat it. Then we have to
go and wash them. On our trip
down we were on the train for fifty
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