One of the boys has put a sign up on our billet and it says Noahs Ark on it and maybe you have heard that old gag Al about the big flood that everybody was drownded only Noah and his folks and a married couple of every kind of animals in the world and they wasn't drownded because Noah had a Ark for them to get in out of the wet. Well Noahs Ark is a good name for our dump and believe me they haven't none of the animals been overlooked and we are also going Noah one better and sheltering all the bugs and some of them is dressed in cocky.
Well I am in this war to the finish and you couldn't hire me to quit till we have ran them ragged but I wished they had of gave us steel helmets wide enough so as they would make a bumber shoot and I hope the next war they have they will pick out Arizona to have it there.
Your pal, JACK.
Somewheres in France, March 6.
FRIEND AL: Well Al I suppose you have read in the communicates that comes out in the paper where the Americans that's all ready in the trenchs has pulled off some great stuff and a whole lot of them has been sighted and give meddles and etc. by the Frenchmens for what they have pulled off and the way they work it Al when one of the soldiers wrists his life or something and pulls off something big like takeing a mess of prisoners and bringing them back here where they can get something to eat the French pins a meddle on them and sometimes they do it if you don't do nothing but die only then of course they send it to your family so as they will have something to show their friends besides snapshots of Mich. City.
Well we was kidding back and fourth about it today and one of the smart alex in our Co. a bird named Johnny Alcock that is always trying to kid somebody all the time he said to me "Well I suppose they will half to build more tonnages to carry all the meddles you will win back to the states." So I said "Well I guess I will win as many of them as you will win." That shut him up for a wile but finely he says "You have got enough chest to wear a whole junk shop on it." So I said "Well I am not the baby that can't win them." So he says "If you ever happen to be snooping around the bosh trenchs when Fritz climbs over the top you will come back so fast that the Kaiser will want to know who was that speed merchant that led the charge and decorate you with a iron cross." So I said "I will decorate you right in the eye one of these days." So he had to shut up and all the other boys give him the laugh.
Well Al jokeing to one side if I half to go back home without a meddle it will be because they are playing favorites but I guess I wouldn't be left out at that because I stand ace high with most of the Frenchmens around here because they like a man that's always got a smile or a kind word for them and they would like me still better yet if they could understand more English and get my stuff better but it don't seem like they even try to learn and I suppose its because they figure the war is in their country so everybody should ought to talk their language but when you get down to cases they's a big job on both our hands and if one of us has got to talk the others language why and the he--ll should they pick on the one that's hard to learn it and besides its 2 to I you might say because the U. S. and the English uses the same language and they's nobody only the French that talks like they do because they couldn't nobody else talk that way so why wouldn't it be the square thing for them to forget theirs and tackle ours and it would prolongate their lifes to do it because most of their words can't be said without straining yourself and no matter what kind of a physic you got its bound to wear you down in time.
But I suppose the French soldiers figure they have got enough of a job on their hands remembering their different uniforms and who to salute and etc. and they have got a fine system in the French army Al because you wear whatever you was before you got to be what you are that is sometimes. For inst. suppose you use to be in the artillery and now you are a aviator you still wear a artillery uniform part of the time and its like I use to pitch for the White Sox and I guess I would be a pretty looking bird if I waddled around in the mire here a wile with my old baseball unie on me and soon people would begin to think I was drafted from the Toledo Mud Hens.
Seriously Al sometimes you see 4 or 5 French officers comeing along and they haven't one of them got the same color uniform on but they are all dressed up like a Roman candle you might say and if their uniforms run when they got wet a man could let them drip into a pail and drink it up for a pussy cafe.