as ever sick of the army
Bill
Dere Mable:
We crossed into the Fodderland yesterday. After scrappin about it for four years nobody seemed to give a rap any more than if wed been draggin in a load of hay. You remember how the papers used to say if we ever drove the Fritzes back to Germany we could never get across the border. Proper Gander, every word of it. They didnt even have a fence around it.
We just crossed a little river no wider than Silver Creek an there we was. No screamin wimmin, no stray shots out of attiks, no awtrocities. Nobody even took the trouble to come out an hiss at us. It made everybody feel pretty low I can tell you. The only ones that took any interest at all was a bunch of kids in soldiers caps an stand up collars like your father wears. They seemed to think we was goin to show in their town an trotted along beside us to watch the big tent go up.
Wed all been plannin for some time on committin a few good awtrocities as soon as we got into Germany just to liven things up a bit.
As usual tho when the Captins runnin the party anything sporty is ruled out. The only awtrocities hell let us commit is makin faces at the Fritzes. The whole thing has been an awful disappointment. This country aint no diferent from France or the one we just left. It aint even colored diferent like it is on the map.
Theres a fello from Milwawke in our battery named Joe Bush. It certinly helps to have somebody around that speaks German. Last night Joe told me hed found a regular bed in one of the Fritz houses that the oficers seemed to have missed. He traded me half of it for a package of cigarets. Back to the hay barn for me tonite.
A German bed is like a loaf of bread thats rose to much. Its so high you need a chair to get onto it. I guess youd need a coroner if you ever rolled off it. When I first got up on it I couldnt make out where the bed close was. Then I found there was two matdresses, one about four feet thick an the other on top about a foot thick. Your supposed to sleep between them like a sanwidge. The little matdress is built so it just reaches from your neck to your ankles if you aint to tall. You can get the idear by lyin down an puttin a sofa pillo over you. Ether the Fritzes has awful tuff feet or there built like a pocket drinkin cup. I tried rollin up like a dog till Joe caught onto it to.
