Letter to Mother from Somewhere in France

#78237
To Mrs Alice D. Cunningham
Hazenmore  Sask.  Canada
27-8-18
Somewhere in France

Dear Mother:–

I want to write a few lines this A.M. by the camp fire at my bivouac door. It is a dandy cool A.M. just fine for work or march or any thing.

McKeith fried me a nice dish of fresh potatoes last night before we went to bed then Pete Campbell called us over and he only had bully and bread and cheese and butter but we ate some of that and called it a treat you see army life has changed the kind of lunch your boy has before he goes to bed,

I sent you a letter yesterday a green envelope bye bye. 

Laurie

29th

Dear Mother I failed to write a few lines yesterday, I guess I slept most of the day in a trench and there was some rain to at times.

There is a good y near hear and I had a dandy good can of strawberries for breakfast. Allso lots of good canadian chocolate the last few days,

Your town Vanguard reminds me of a french town I will tell you about when I return by the name of Hanguard

I dressed a man yesterday that got a bad wound or about six bad ones and our M.O. was not far away so I sent for him and went on dressing, everything was fine but it done me good to be able to send for him, the first real bad wounds I had to take on my self, I will be able to carry on fine now.

I am not getting any chance to send souvenirs home now but if I have any luck I will not loose them and will get them out later,

Some times I get dissatisfied at my job and I think I would like to quit and take a rifle and work for promotion, then again I feel there is no place they need good men more than on the first aid job. So I go on I guess just as well here as any place and a thousand times more contented –  –  –  –

Well Mother it is evening again. I have taken up my abode in a trench and am facing south west as I sit in the funk hole I made on the fire step in our trench. It is all together different than the one I had last night but better I guess. I slept on my stretcher last night I have a heine ground sheet for shelter a lot of grass I cut with my clasp knife under me and a row of sand bags on the sides that have no bank. I have a half sand bag full of grass for a pillow and it is the best pillow I have had since the old feather tick I told you McKeith and I had in a bivouac once not long ago.

Mother I would consider I had been quite a bumb if I had traveled as far in a box car before I came to France as I have since. I have seen a lot of old France now but can't tell you about it. You will always know by reading the papers I just looked up and there is twenty planes oh there is over thirty I tell you they are on the job these days it does me good some times to see them doing there work,

I slept in tonight and was late for supper when I went to the kitchen the cook gave me bread and butter cheese, and made tea for me some thing I never saw a cook do for any one late before, I missed my rice and jam but could not eat all my cheese and bread and butter so guess I should kick.

Say Mother I wish I could see deeper into life, into the life of others we so often blame others for there attitude toward this or that and yet we don't know what conditions they lived and grew under or what there parents were like. A thing happened today that has made me think a lot. There is a boy Fred Summers that always has kicked a lot at army life, and I have have jumped him several times for it and said mean things I am sure, but I thought maby he would see his complaining and change. Then he is nervous and always wants to sleep in a dug out well I always felt like laughing at him, but today he said to me Laurie I would give any thing to have your nerve, well I just realized that he could not help his way of doing and that he needed a little encouragement instead of mean ensinuations so from now on I am going to tolerate men a hundred times more before I say any thing to them, I could tell you so much about my experiences along this line and the change it has made in my life.

I have lots of chocolate and maple sugar in my haver sack, why we are living like kings at times and good, I say all the time, some of the boys complain at times but they haden't followed me up and down the country for a few years or they would not criticize so much You know Mother boys coming right out of home where they went to school right up untill they enlisted never done a days work in life, have it harder than I do, harder on the temper, te. he.

Well good night Mother dear as ever your loving son
Laurie

P. S. I got a letter from Otto last mail he always writes me a dandy letter but I guess I am slow at answering him.