Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 246, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1917 — CAMP SHELBY LETTER. [ARTICLE]

CAMP SHELBY LETTER.

Dear Editor: This is Sunday and it is the good old summer time. It reminds me of the July weather back in Indiana, if you would leave out the rains. It hasn’t rained here for some time and to dust is mighty bad. One of the soldiers about camp was talking to a southerner yesterday and he was tell- I ing the latter about a letter he re- j ceived from home, telling him that it was snowing back -in Indiana, whereupon the southerner exclaimed: “My! I’ll bet youall wisht you were back there so you could see it begin.” He also added that he had never seen snow. • The drafted men that came from Louisville recently say that they had ( a real camp back in Kentucky and that everything is much better there than here. We thought this camp was the finest in the land and believe it is under the circumstances, remembering what it was before the soldiers arrived here. • 4 There has been a lot of transierring here lately and the boys are not quit satisfied when they are transferred two or three times in less than a month, but it apparently cannot be helped. I hard a colonel making a speech and he said, “I started from Virginia with the finest regiment in the land, fend today I have one lieutenant and a private left. We are here to soldier, though, and not to have our private organization, so it don’t make any difference where we All the equipment for this battery has not arrived yet, so our regular drill has not commenced. We go to school eight hours a day and listen to lectures at night. There is very little sickness here and everyone seems to be in the best of health. We have a little stove in our tent that is mighty useful at night and especially in the The meals are all good and easy to tfijk’&L ——_ .’ ' I would like to take orders for Xmas trees. They are first class and would make the best. We are m the heart of the pine woods. It is really hard to know where all of the old company M men are just now. All I know is that they are here in Camp Shelbv someplace. Battery C has the most cf the Company M men I expect. There are fifty here I know, but to tell you where the rest are, I really don t know. Who said to join Company M and stay with the home boys? Ruth Law, the great aviatrix, was here yseterday and today, flying around the camp. She makes five loops in succession. It makes a grand sight to see an aeroplane flying around camp. There is all the entertainment a person could ask for, one big theatre, baseball, football, and Redpath chautauqua, and also good band music. It is just like a public park here on Saturdays and Sundays Saturdays and Sundays are remembered long after the work is forgotten. The common talk with the men about the camp, is the fine state from which they came. I never knew a man could love his state so until now. Each man can paint a wonderful picture of his home state in just a few words, and if you would listen very long he would lead you to think it was the only state in the Union. They make many wild statements and often times go far out of bounds, but it shows they have the spirit. A person would have to talk to me a long time to make me see Mississippi as good as Indiana, but if you would-listen some would probably try. Each tent is equipped with a floor and walls wheih run up three feet, and an electric light, so you see we are reasonably comfortable. The mess halls are in front, of the company streets and have eight men to a table, the bath houses are in the rear and we will soon have warm water in them. The water here is the very best for washing and we can make our clothes look like they had been laundered in a professional place. Hoping that this letter finds everyone in Rensselaer as healthy as we boys in Company M are, we remain, OLD COMPANY M.