Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1916 — James Stonebraker Don’t Like Soldiering Very Well. [ARTICLE]

James Stonebraker Don’t Like Soldiering Very Well.

Under date of July 13 James Stonebraker writes a letter to his mother, Mrs. L. Stonebraker. James is a member of Company M of this city, now down on the Mexican border near Mercedes, Texah, and The Democrat copies a few extracts from the letter. After telling of their leaving Indianapolis on Friday and reaching camp on Tuesday following at 8:15 a. m., James goes on to say that he doesn't like soldiering very well now, and was about sick when the letter was written. He states that they have been sleeping every night in water up around their hips, and ihat “is enough to kill any man.” It only rains there, he says, three times a year, but the rainy season lasts for weeks. Nothing but “cactus grows here,” he says, "and rattlesnakes by the thousand. We are four miles from the border, a wild country here; we are camping right in the wilderness, no town close. It never gets cold here; no winter, all summer. It is beautiful here when it is dry. The water is rotton.”