[Letter to His Mother, June 10, 1918]

[American YMCA logo, ON ACTIVE SERVICE
WITH THE AMERICAN EXPEDITIONARY FORCE]

June 10 1918

Dear Mother,

I suppose you've received that 'Mother's Letter' by now.  The mail 
clerks must have worked overtime when that load of letters was being 
given out because everyone in the A.E.F. probably got in line and sent 
one.  I sent home twenty dollars through the Y.M.C.A., about a week ago 
and a three months subscription to the 'Stars and Stripes" ought to 
start coming soon after you receive this letter.
I wish you would renew that subscription to the 'Popular Magazine' for 
six months.  They wrote to me but there is no use in trying to get the 
back numbers, from May, as it will be about the middle of July before 
they begin

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sending, again.  I guess Mame will have to keep all those socks she 
knitted for me because all packages are stopped.  All leaves or 
furloughs are stopped, too, but as we haven't had a chance since last 
February, it doesn't matter, anyway.  I've been considering what the 
papers had to say about the fights the boys have had, lately.  If you 
could see the fellows who captured Cantigny (Canteen-ya) you would 
certainly say "What, those boys?"  I saw some of them after they got 
away from the trenches, to rest, and they look anything but 
blood-thirsty.  They all had a lot of stories to tell and nearly 
everyone had a souvenir to bring back.  They brought back a herd of 
prisoners, too, which they had collected, after they had decided to 
begin taking them.  The fellows had had to go through so much

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trouble that each company was pretty well united, like a big family, 
so, of course, when they went over and the machine guns began to get a 
man, here and there, the others couldn't feel friendly towards the 
gunners or anyone else who stopped to argue or try any tricks.  One of 
the prisoners was a medical corps man who had been in the army just a 
month.  He was glad to be captured, so he said.  Some of the German 
machine gunners had a dugout that was camouflaged so well that the boys 
passed it in the advance but soon had reason to notice it.  They didn't 
take any prisoners, there, natchully.
Whenever anyone begins howling about his hard luck or some fresh 
cruelty, somebody else with a heart of stone yells, 
"Naatchully[underlined]."  Makes the crowd feel better, anyway.  One of 
the boys had some photos and a letter from a girl, which he took off a 
German as souvenirs, when things had quieted a little.  She hoped his 
heart

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was like her's.  Souvenir-hunting was very interesting and, in a lot of 
cases, very expensive, because of the snipers.
Ellen is anxious to find out how to camouflage clothes.  Well, the only 
way I know is to find a nail in a doorway or else, some barbed wire and 
accidentally brush against it a few times.  Then all she has to do is 
to draw new clothes from the supply sergeant and turn in the old worn 
out ones.  Some of the boys used to do their laundry work that way but 
it didn't last long.
I've just received a letter from Nora and half a dozen from the 
T.A.B.s, from Frank Kane, Geo. Callahan, Bill Callahan, Ray Keating, 
Frank Welch, and Pete Kennedy and I was glad to get them, too.  Tell 
Ellen that I get all the clippings she sends.  We all have our service 
stripes, a V of gold-braid on the left forearm.
Don't forget to write.
Your loving son, 
Rob.



[Transcribed by Lauren Kanne on 5/27/2009.]