Evening star., 1943-03-30

hehry hcLe"ore. OIL OptTdtlOIlS
that good 100 of them are as
useless as an alarm clock would
be to rooster.
The 1876 messages are classified
under seven general heads, namely,
correspondence, greetings, health,
promotion, money, congratulations
and miscellaneous. A man can send
one or three of them for the same
price-tWo shillings six pence-but
even for free they'd be no bargain.
There is not a single one of them
that enables the average man to
say what he wants to say after a
few weeks or months over here.
Under Correspondence" you got
such things as, Parcel received"
Parcels received, many thanks"
and Many thanks for parcel" Now,
no one gets parcels over here to
start with. A fellow is lucky to get
postcard, much less parcel. The
last man to get a parcel, insofar as
my investigation shows, was Gen.
Eisenhower and that contained the
extra star he needed for his shoul-
der after being made a full general.
"Greetings" Are Inadequate.
Under Greetings" there is such
stuff and nonsense as Loving
wishes for Christmas, Best wishes
for Christmas Loving Christmas
thoughts" and Loving birthday
greetings" Did the bird who thought
up these cables think Christmas
was daily event and every man
in the Army had nothing to do
with his money but remember birth
days?
And, will he please explain why
under the heading of Health" he
includes such things as Son born"
Daughter born" and All children
evacuated"
In the Promotion" group a man
can send wires saying. "Congratula-
tlons on your promotion" "Very
pleased to hear of your promotion
and Delighted to hear about your
promotion It's nonsense to think
that the hundreds of thousands of
soldiers scattered about the British
Isles all have friends who are
getting promoted all the time. Why
couldn't there be few cables say
ing. Sorry to hear you were fired"
or Sorry you were let out for in
| efficiency"
What I am driving at is this:
The boys over here should be given
chance to send natural, normal
messages back home and not have
to spend money on cables that
sound as if stuffed shirt with extra
starch, had composed them. Why
not have cables like these under
correspondence? Il amt writing
if you don't Sister" or Where is all
that stuff you said you were knitting
for me, Liar?' or Not having had a
word from you since I left, what
about hooking that ring and send
ing me the dough-"
Don't Provide Simple Queries.
There is absolutely no provision
made for asking the simple ques-
tions that bother the average SOL
dier. He should be able to cable
and ask how many teeth Junior has
or if mamma still won't help with the
dishes or how the tires are holding
out on the old bus.
Only the other day, on March Is
to be exact, what I really wanted to
ask my wife by cable was if she had
enough money in the bank to pay
the first installment on my income
tax. But do you know what I had
to settle for? Best wishes for the
New Year. Hearing your voice on
the wireless gave me a great thrill.
Glad and proud to hear of your
decoration. Everybody thrilled"
This cable upset her and quite ma
turally. She had to spend $40 on a
wire to me to find out if l had gone
crazy or had thrown in the sponge
to the delirium tremens.
Gen. Marshall, the next move is
up to you.
distributed by McNaught Syndicate, 1nc)