The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1919-04-04
EXTRACTS FROM A
SOLDIERS LETTER.

| There are seemy sides to a soldiers
life that do not often get spread
abroad, as the censor has a habit of
interfering with such letters, and the
soldier who does too much kicking is
liable to find himself up against call
down. A letter from soldier in
France which escaped the censor was
left at this office this week by rela-
tive. Owing to its contents the unit
| that the writer is attached to is not
given. as is is not desired to get him
into trobule
France, January 26, 1871 will
| commence a letter to send in the
! French mail whenever I get a chance
to mail it. Don't know when that will
| be- You ask so many. questions that if
answered. the answers will have to be
| sent through the French mail or the
censor would get hold of it. or one like
it, and | would spend the rest of my
| time over here in the guard house.
You ask why are the letters sensored? /?
| 1t is mostly to cover up the rotten
things that happen over here. You
may have heard of some of it, but not
all of it by any means.
| will commence dt the first and
tell you of my trip over here and
what happened on the way. On the
boat coming over 81 men died of the
flu and were buried at sea and about
! 80 went to the hospital at Brest On
the ship Fatherland 10S men died and
| between 800 and 900 went to the hos
pital. We went into rest camps at
| Brest. Each squad carried it's tents
from the warehouse TO fresh plowed
field with about three days rain on it.
Set up our tents and slept in the mud
| for two weeks. caught my present
cold there. We went 20 Tours. Condi-
| tions were good there and we had the
only good doctor that have met since
! coming over here We were there only
| three or four days. Then we came
down here in box cars and never saw
| nogs packed in any tighter. We were
about five days on The trip, so you
can imagine how we felt when we got
here, and we were not allowed off
he train on the trip. The weather was
very good here. We went to work on
the road night and day My cold kept
getting worse. 1t Went to the bottom
of my lung and from there to a rib
had broken three years ago. Every
time | cOughed it was like a knife
sticking in my side. l kept getting
worse until about two weeks ago. |
! had a coughing spell and something
broke inside | was awful sick for
about three hours, but have felt better
| IN my side since then. The best medi-
| cine | ever got at this post was a
promise that | would be better tomor-
COW. The doctor gets very angry if he
,sees two or three extras on the sick
call. 1t takes too much of his time, but
he has plenty of time to flirt around
with the French girls in the govern
ment autos at the peoples expense.
There is no use in going to him for he
won't let you tell your trouble, Just
shoots you one OF his pills and one of
| his promises. That is not all the dirty
work going on, just one of my cases
| The Y. M. c. A., slackers are anoth-
er crooked outfit. l will not try and
tell you of their dirty work But the
hed cross is o. X. Do all you can for
them. They and the Salvation Army
nave done some wonderful work over
| mere. The Red Cross was giving ont
| SOCKS, shirts and other small articles
at Marseilles. There were about 100
OF us in line. When it came my turn
was so hoarse | could hardly tell the
| nurse what | wanted. She asked me if
| | mad plenty of blankets. told her
what had. She went in and got me a
big wool blanket that would have cost
9lz or $l5 in the states. That is the
| way the Red Cross does things over
here. ! was the only one in line that
l could see that got blanket. 1t
would do you good to hear some of the
| the stories the boys tell of the Red
cross and Salvation Army You would
know then that you had not done all
your work for nothing.
! You asked how our barracks were
: Ihey are about as good as any in
france, except the floors. They are
| cement and ashes ground to dust.
| making 1t very unsenitary place to
| stay and sleep in dust flying all the
| 'ime' ana so many men in one bar
rack coughing and splitting. But we
nave plenty of venti' alton. You could
| throw cat through the walls most
any place. The roof is tile and keeps
out the rain all right, but you can i'm
rgine how the wind comes under
them. This is a very indy country.
Has been very cold the past two