Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1919-01-07
LETTER FROM FRANCE.

The following Is a letter received
from Kenneth Guenther by his mother,
Mrs. A. Guenther. He says in part:
Sunday, and not much of day for
us. | was on guard duty from eight
yesterday morning until eight this
morning. Got off duty just in time to
go to mass at the "Y."
We moved out of our shelter tents
this afternoon into barracks. ! am
pretty we'll settled now. 1t will be
much better here than in the tents as
the weather is so damp here all the
time.
This is very large camp, imagine
there are several thousand men here
now. There is only one "Y" here, and
that is always so crowded that there
isn't anything to do after our days
work but go to bed, early.
/ was into LeMans on a pass this
week, spent considerable time in see
ing the sights of the town, and there
are several of them, too. 1t is a very
old city and has a lot of interesting
history connected with it. One place
OF special interest is the old Catheder-
al. Saw many beautiful things in the
stores, especially jewelry wish l had
big supply of Francs" so l could
bring some nice souviners home with
me.
Judging from the newspaper clip
ping you enclosed, imagine you must
have had big celebration there. How
l wish / could have been there to take
part. They surely had reasons to Gel
ebrate all right, and think they would
have made it much more elaborate had
they known how much the boys had
to go through.
You must have gotten my Christ
mas coupon just in time, surely am
anxious to get the package, after you
have told me all that is in it. Some
of the boys got theirs a week ago.
Guess you haven't a very good idea
of how many men there are over
here and how big France really is.
Haven't seen Emil Mueller or Ray
Malone, and haven't any idea where
, they are at.
Glad to hear M. Johnson received my
letter. / haven't had a reply as yet.
| saw some of Co. G boys. Guess En-
win Olson is well into Germany by this
time. | have never heard from Maur-
ice Matthisson or Bob Ziebell.
| don't know how they will manage
about sending the men home, To-
days paper said that the older men
would be held here until peace is
signed. That looks as though we
would be some of the first ones home.
AT any rate we all feel it our turn
next and are anxiously awaiting the
orders to go. How soon that will be
| is hard to tell l don't think we would
mind 1t so much here if we were only
in better climate. You have often
heard this country spoken of as "Sun-
| ny France" well we see the sun here
about once in two weeks.
You wondered what our work would
be from now on. We have been drill
ling about as much as before the war
was over We play games and just now
| am due for guard duty for an indefi-
mite time; hope it won't last long,
as dislike it very much.
| don't suppose this will reach you
before Christmas, but hope you will
spend very pleasant and happy day
Although l can't be with you my
thoughts will surely Se of all of you
and home. / am sure it will be a
happy day for all, even though we are
separated. l hope you have already
received the little remembrance
sent you from st. Loubes.
/ Wishing you all bright New Year
with lots of love to you all.
KENNETH GUENTHER,
Hdqrs. Co. 343rd Inf, American Elk
Forces.