The weekly Alaska citizen., 1918-10-21

II CCANCA lOllC1 LAOQA Alc UAoIACA Frank. who is with Co. B." 311th Machine Gun Battalion. 79th Division, A. E. F. Enclosed with the letter was the following issue of publi. cation captioned "The Bust-em Browning" The sheet was issued on August 27th and is Vol. l, No. 5. The price is placed at German or Turks. They have many subscribers {: WRITING TO THE GIRL.
 Somewhere in France, Aug. 25.
 Dear Ethel:
 I'm a heller now, Ethel. Here am out here somewhere in France, squat ting against chicken-coop which was the latest thing when Napoleon wintered in Moscow. Got my trusty pencil stub and a few minutes to myself for the first time since re. veille blew last Monday morning. Why shouldn't your own Jerry think of you first? Got to write or l | would get homesick.
 | Gosh, they work us hard here. Ethel! am getting so hard and healthy I am afraid l will hurt my self. think our officers, some of whom have almost human intelli- | gence. are trying to get us so tough the boche bullets will hit us and just n of turolJ,r houpco hocL Tn o rso,, pI a | of weeks I think 1 can look a bat tery of splitting Hun artillery in the face and sing Hail, Hail, the Gangs | All Here" without turning hair. am going to take brodie with the censorship-pardon. senseless- ship-of this mans army and tell l you something about it.
 | Ethel, they get us up in the middle of the night. They don't ask us if we are slept out or anything. but just as a fellow is getting settled in his beauty sleep and just when he be- gins to dream of those little walks he used to take-eh, Ethel?-along comes that sQueaky bugle and busts 1t all up. We get out, take exercise, have chow-generally eggs, toast and hot chocolate, perhaps-and then we go to work. We police up this town every day. l think the dirt oozes out every night or they come along and unload thick layer. Then we drill-drill is the exact word, Ethel, for they bore it into us, pack it and tamp it down and then cover it. All day long it lasts, too, with training , in everything from how best to get your teeth into the tenderest sector of a German to kicking him where his brains are and hitting him where they should be. With machine gun and gas mask and grenades and pis. tols and God knows what all they pound it into us. And by night time you feel like dish rag that has been on tear.
 All this week it has been hike, hike hike, and shoot, shoot, shoot. We have poured tons of lead into these hills, every ball passing thru an imitation Hun. After the war l am going to start a company, sell stock, and mine it out and get rich.
 That old Browning gun-old pal. call him--is sure a friend of mine. He can do everything a buddy can do, and the best thing he does is stick to you in a pinch. He can think. I guess, for his legs and in. sides almost never get sick. He knows how to keep them we'll. He can feel, because every time he thinks of German and gets talking he gets hot under the collar. And he can crate as eloquently as Uncle Sam himself-sometimes I think he takes the words right out of Uncle Samuel's mouth. And he spits 'em he's some boy. and know him from muzzle to toe-nail.
 This French is funny lingo. A billet-doux means love letter and a billet means bank-note. But we live in an ordinary French billet and it is neither a love letter nor a bank. note. No, Ethel, it is a cross between a Roman ruin and a mongrel stone quarry. But it keeps the wind out and the rain out and the odor in. l made up a rhyme on billet which know old Woodward Kindling, or whatever his name is, would be glad to own. It goes like this: "A billet
 is great in it's natural state. as 3 home for COWS and such, as a soft, downy bed. to lay tired head; hell. It all helps to beat the Dutch" Now, ain't I a heller, Ethel? The French say Wee-Wee to most every. thing and they spell like we spell the first part of ouch. They say No oompris" regular after each sen. tence I say to them. It must mean some class" in American.
 won't let any of the French girls
 steal me away from you. But if
 they try. Ethel. suppose it's the new hat hr the yniIit rv hairc,,t or