The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1918-11-21
Letters From and About Soldiers

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1t makes LIE dizzy to think Of What
have been through within the past
seven weeks. writes Sgt. H. A.
Franz, member Of a field artillery
company in France, 10 his wife.
Seven weeks Of hell and out O. a., SO
feel confident that am going to 70
through the rest the same way. Lost
four Of my pals. but il is all in the
game. ! Was down five days myself
as a result of shell shock IL blew up
about 10 yards from me. and the lights
Went out Tor a while. | am quite
nervous yet. not scared al all. but the
shock was terrible. That shell got
several, but | happened to be busy at
something that kept me lying on the
ground, and by luck the fragments
went over me-
i never thought that gas was
dangerous thing. but the boys have
more fear OF 1t than anything else.
While IN camp We scotfed at the idea
OF getting mask on and adjusted in
slx seconds, but | am sure / can do
II IN three seconds and am tickled to
death to know that il is on.
The interest the men show once on
the front rs wonderful. The officers
have difficulty in restraining the men
IN their daredevil stunts Such is the
American army The men do not have
TO be driven. They know perfectly
we'll what is, to be done, and they do il.
The front looks like hell turned upside
down and the fire burned out. An old
fashioned slaughter house has nothing
on parts OF IT for smells. Horrors are
common. For instance. when we dig
emplacements for machine guns legs
and arms stick out like the roots of
trees. AS one goes up TO the front he
hears pounding and rumbling that
( grows continually louder.
First we hear our own heavy guns
and then occasionally see black or
brown column shoot up. 1t is heavy
German shell bursting This gets
worse and worse as the front is ap-
preached. The big ones rush, scream
and growl, as they pass over head.
They have buslnesslike rumble and
sound like train crossing a bridge
On getting up to about six or seven
miles from the front we have to kind
OF dodge shells bursting overhead and
on the ground. We are bit nervous
over one OF these shrapnel cans dump
| ing its load Of steel shells out on our
heads. At times the noise is almost
unbearable. You can almost feel your
self going nuts. However, we do not
stay long IN place and never give an
inch of ground under any circum-
stances. We are just naturally going
to push these huns back to their river
Rhine, and shot them all as they swim
across.
Forward observation work is Ger
tainly goat grabber. 1t is front line
duty. and is quite often out in front Of
the front line trenches. III say that
1t is the hottest place in the world
You should see our guns. | am
certainly proud Of them. They can
shoot 20 miles as easily as one, and
are as easily handled as a toy. The bar
rels are 80 feet long and they hurl six
inch shells that simply scream. They
are as different from the old style Of
guns as day is from night. They are
mounted on regular chassis some
| thing like an auto truck chassis, and
have huge rubber tires. They are
hauled by tractors that travel along
like freight trains.
Sleep is something that you can
talk about but don't get. The first
time | tried it got little, but the
pounding and humping made me hug
old mother earth pretty close, SO close
that made kind Of wallow before !
had to give it up. These seam SOU r.
rels and pure unadulterated filth try
to make life miserable for man.
You can tell inquirers that the
American army is going to win this
war The moral effect of our men,
buoying up the spirit Of the Allies, has
been wonderful. The French cant
understand the dash of the Americans,
but they follow us and stick like heas.
Honest, on some OF the fronts it was
like a Sunday school picnic, the oppos-
ing soldiers getting almost on speak
ing terms. But the Americans sure
broke this up. They waded in and
started something. Whenever any of
US sit down to rest, other men jump up
and take our places. 1t is one contin-
ual relay race and the Germans can't
hold out against il long.
THE air is full Of planes, and some
of the aerial fights are worth coming
thousands Of miles to see. While YOU
cant tell from the ground, often,
which one takes the final plunge to the
ground, such battles produce sensa
tion something like a baseball game
and you just cant help yelling when
goodlplay is made. have piece of
wood from German Fokker that |
am going to send to you.
Uncle Sam feeds us fine. We have
no worries over cigarets, candy, can
dies, soap, clothes and eats. Every.
thing is always clean and good. am
for government control of everything
after this. For instance, we pay only
eight cents for package Of clgarets
that cost 20 cents at home, and bottles
of matted milk that cost 81 in the
States are sold here for AZ cents
each.
The following interesting letter has
been received by Rev. and Mrs. J. l.. |
Hershner from their son. Sgt. Harold
Hershner, of field hospital some
where in France
1--WE arrived at this billet after
series Of marches covering four days
and nights. but the marches were
mostly at night with plenty of rain
falling to make things interesting. 1t
surely knows how to rain here and
gets terribly wet. WelsleDt wherever
we could, on the wet ground. With |
boughs which we gathered we kept
some of the mud off of our bedding and
clothing. But this series of hard |
marches brought us to very old
French village. situated on hill over
looking the country around for several
miles, and the view was surely beauti-
full. The fields are beautifully green,
the roads are white and lined with
trees and the valley dotted with vii
lagos. No wonder they say France is
beautiful. We were lucky to be billet
ed in a nice large barn located just
outside the village. The barn was a
new one, built Of concrete andktone in
1908 and was filled with nice. clean
straw and hay. No stock was in it at