Great Falls daily tribune., 1919-01-19
WANTED COOTlES
/ KILLER AS GIFT
Kyle Jones, Bynum Lad Over
seas, Writes Vivid Story Tell
ing of Battalion Activities.

until warned by an officer to cease as
the berries might become poisoned with
German gas. The letter is as follows:
Orleans. France. Nov. 81. 1915. 4
My dear father: Today is the day set
aside for all members of the American
expediionary forces to write Christ
mas letter to their first commanding of
ficrrs at home. This letter no doubt will
reach you about Christmas time. | have
received several letters from You and
mother recently. But the most of these
letters were over a month old when they
reached me. | don't know whether I'll
ever get to see Bob Forbes here or not
Earl says he is in hospital somewhere
with rheumatism
Somermeyer is in the tank service with
Uncle Sam; he says he's where he can
use gun now But he viii never get
to France now. ! surely wish ] knew
DIR. Dixon,s address, but | probably
would get no chance to see him. We
surely like to get letters here. and as the
censorship lid is off to some extent at
present since the arnlistice was signed.
| can write you a decent letter for
change. | can even mention few dates
and places which we could not do before.
! know voH have wondered at me not
dating my letters and telling vou where
| have been, 1t was a military necessity.
| Napoleon nearly whipped all Europe once
| by capturing letters Of enemy soldiers
| have incl,rded many things in my last
few letters which | could not do before.
Kept News From Hun.
! | hope the crops were not SO bad there.
/ For a long time your letters told of bad
crops. | had to burn those letters to
make sure no Hun weud get them. So
| you see we left no stone unturned to beat
! the Hun In fact. we had to burn all of
4 our letters before we went over the
| top" No doubt you have had snow by
| this time; there has been none here and
| it keeps quite mild.
! | have had no pay for three months,
! but | am hoping to get a few francs
| soon. We get ali we went to eat wear
| and smoke from | tucle Sam. So il doesn't t
| make much difference whether We get
paid or not | have about 450 francs
due me now That is on account of haV
| ing to leave my company.
So you had Spanish Influenza in Mon
tanaa We had it over here too, but j
managed to escape so far. The papers
here were full Of the accounts Of the
epidemic in American and also IN Eu-
rope
Mother asked If there was much fruit
I'll France besides grapes. Yes, but il $
so high you cant reach il. And many,
many of the fruit trees have gone TO
ruin during the war There are a great
many grapes OF course, but they make
the most of them into wine. Generally
speaking water is no good here. so the
people drink light wines almost entirely
There are also apples. pears and many
plums. But wine is made of ali kinds Of
fruit, even the wild berries | got some
wild biackberrres right behind the lines
several times while the shells were
whistling overhead They were very
good, ] thought, very sweet and juicy.
Bat one day an officer told me- to eat
no more Of them as he said they might
be poisoned by gas. There IS always
somebody to take the JOY out Of life.
Wanted Cooticide.
You asked me if there was anything !
especially wanted for Christmas. Yes.
would like d universal, automatic. get
'em-every shot cooticide- Now, III bet
you don't know what eootie is, Well,
anyawy. d cootie is ten thousand times
meaner and more lively than any bed
bug YOU ever saw The most of them
look just like KAISER Bill. especially
when they are full grown. We take off
our shirts and wage war against them
every night. Sometimes we trade coolies,
. small one for 4 big one. or an Old one
for a Young one or something. | shall
try not to bring any TO Montana with
me- bht some fool soldier is going to get
to Montana with some coolies. If SO the
state will be infested very shortly for
they multiply rapidly.
No doubt you want to know some OF
the places we have been III. | told you
| about being in New York city on the Bird
and 4th Of July with four other boys from
Montana We sailed from New York on
July 6 and after smooth voyage landed
in Liverpool, England on the 18th
About 3 o'clock in the morning of the
18th some Yank with rich brogue called
down the long lines of hammoc9s. Wake
n. A
great many of us scrambled up to see
the sun rise on the Irish coast But
cannot go into too much detail here
J From Liverpool we took an English tram
and travelled to Southampton. England
is one of the most beautiful countries
have ever seen. France is much rough
er than England. On the evening oi
!. July q we left Southampton for Hayre
: France. We saw France at sunrise Oh
July % We stayed in military camp
at Harre for two days when we left foi
our training camp We passed In sighl
. of Paris and saw scores of airpianes over
the city, but saw only the suburbs Of the
J capital On July 2G We arrived in the
| department of Haute. Marue, and were
little village If Marnay- about half way
between Chaufnont and Langres. Pete
: Loconette and knothoies were at Langes
, Frencs, Wore Cordial.
At Marnay we got pretty well az
quainted with the french people They
! treated lis fine. There we drilled
, drilled. drilled. We took many long
5 marches Of 20 miles with heavy packs or
! our backs in every direction from Mar
! nay. We had mneh pistol and machine
gun practice We uscd lots Of ammuni.
ton 1t was hard work every day; we
learned to throw hand grenades and wear
gas masks. We had to be able TO march
for an hour and half with gas mask
I, on~-,he hardest job | ever undertook
This war business wouldn't be half bad
: if it weren't for the hard grind Of train
ing. But we all got strong and hard as
, nails. We had swim every night in
) the Marine canal Marnay is on the up.
: per Marne river. but no fighting ever
; took place at this point. On September
3 the battalion was one year old so you
see most Of the men had had lot oi
training before | saw it. SO we had one
celebration in good old western style
, We bought m OK and had regular bar
becue: We roasted him whole The
French people of that little village stooe
around and watched the proceedings OF
the barbecue with open mouths and eyes
fCanflnueH IN Pnra EiUhfA