B. E. Sylvester
% Credit Lyonnais
Correspondence Dept.
Paris, France
DO NOT WORRY
Byrl.
Letter
Sunday- June 17, 1917 Paris
"Somewhere in France"
(NOTE: An edited version of this letter appeared in the July 20 issue of the PLAINVIEW NEWS.)
Dear Folks,
Have been so busy the last ten days that I have not found time to write home. We are now out at "a camp" about thirty five miles from Paris, as the camp was just organized a few weeks ago. Things are not quite as handy as they will be in the future. This is my first experience with real army camp life and I can say I like it very much. There is at present over one hundred men here, although we are ambulance men, never-the-less while in camp we are treated just as a soldier, directly under French army officers. We are up in the morning at seven sharp, called by a bugle, all assemble and go through about a half hour of regular U. S. Army drill Breakfast at eight. At about nine we are put to work on jobs around camp such as cutting grass, digging ditches, pounding rock and various other jobs- which must be done. At eleven o’clock we rest until twelve. At this time we receive lunch. At 2:30 we again go to work until 4:30. We now go on a march of about five miles. Supper at six. Everyone must be in bed by ten-fifteen. Any slip up on these regulations and the offender must suffer- a regular system I should say.
Our meals consist of very plain food- rye bread, meat and soup and once in awhile beans as a luxury. The work, walks, and food are making one as hard as nails.
There are about twenty-five men from Minnesota in a bunch here. We will be the next section to be called out. A section is made up of forty-five men. Our section will be number 62 known as the Minnesota Section. From the latest reports we will leave here in about two weeks for the "Front."
France is a very beautiful country, very similar to southern Minnesota at this time of year. The strawberries are ripe, all garden truck, the roses are in bloom and the farmers (the ones that are left) are now cutting hay. On the last boat many of the men received papers from home and the Minnesota men certainly were anxious to see a Minneapolis paper dated May 27th and arriving here June 16. I knew that my address would be 7 rue Francois Pr. Paris before leaving home. I could have left it with you but I do hope to receive a letter by the 15th of July. This makes my third letter home. One on the boat, the second in Paris, and this one here at camp. Hope you received them all. Everyone is very glad that they got into this service because we are treated very fine at headquarters and every man is in it for the one purpose- to wipe out the "Bosche".
Am wondering what you are all doing back home this Sunday morning. It is now twelve o’clock here – noon. We are just seven hours ahead of your time over there. That means five o’clock in the morning. You must be all sleeping soundly unless those cats that used to play around the sleeping porch are busy.
How is the National going? Do you take many trips and keep the car up? Is Edwin Jr. weeding the onions? (NOTE: Many Plainview youth worked summers weeding onion fields for 50 cents or so a day.)
Saw by the paper just before leaving that Curt Johnson had joined the American Ambulance Service. Well the American Amb. has tried to pull a lot of dishonest stuff with its men, putting them on to driving trucks, etc… So that out of the two hundred American men that came over in the Chicago when we did, over one hundred came over and joined the Norton-Harjes or ambulance corps. So you see the corps we

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