Well Al we done a little training Friday and Saturday but today was the first day we realy went to it. First of course we got up and dressed and then they was 10 minutes of what they call upseting exercises and then come breakfast which was oatmeal and steak and bread and coffee. The way it is now you got to get your own dishs and go up to the counter and wait on yourself but of course we will have waiters when things gets more settled. You also got to make your own bed and that won’t never kill nobody Al because all as we got is 2 blankets and you don’t have to leave the bed open all a.m. like at home because whatever air wanted to get in wouldn’t let these blankets stop it.
Then they give us an hour of drilling and that was duck soup for me on acct. of the drilling we done on the ball club last spring and you ought to seen the corporal and sargent open their eyes when they seen me salute and etc. but some of the birds don’t know their right from their left and the officers had to put a stick of wood in their right hand so they would know it was their right hand and imagine if some of them was ball players and played left field. They would have to hire a crossing policeman to tell them where to go to get to their position and if they was pitchers they wouldn’t know if they was right hand pitchers or left hand pitchers till they begun to pitch and then they would know because if they were hog wild they would be left handers.
The corporals and sargents come from the regular army but after a while Capt. Nash will pick some of us out to take their place and it is a cinch I will be picked out on acct. of knowing all about the drills etc.
The next thing was a lecture on what they could do to us if we got stewed or something and how to treat the officers and we got to sir them and salute them and etc. and it seems kind of funny for a man that every time he walked out to pitch the crowd used to stand up and yell and I never had to sir Rowland or Collins. I’d knock their block off if they tried to make me.
Well every time we wasn’t doing something else they sprung some more of them upseting exercises on us and I called the corporal to one side and says if he would excuse me I would pass up some of them because I didn’t need to exercise on acct. of playing baseball all summer and besides I was tired and he says these exercises was to fix me so I wouldn’t get tired and he made me go through with all of them. How is that for brains Al and I suppose if a man was up all night watching a corpse or something this bird would make you stay awake all the next day so you wouldn’t get sleepy.
For dinner we had roast chicken and sweet potatoes and cream corn and biscuits and coffee and for supper they was bake beans with tomato sauce and bread and pudding and cake and coffee and the grub is pretty fair only a man can’t enjoy it because you got to eat to fast because if theys anything left on your plate when the rest of them birds gets through you got to fight to keep it from going to the wrong address. Well Al its pretty near time for the tattoo buggle which means the men has got to shut up and keep quiet so I am going to get ready for bed but I don’t know if I would rather have them keep quiet or not because when they are keeping quiet you don’t know what they are up to and maybe they are snooping a round somewheres waiting for a man to go to sleep so they can cut your throat. Some of them has been use to doing it all their life Al and they are beggining to miss it. But I don’t know if I wouldn’t just as leave die that way as from them upseting exercises.
Camp Grant, Sept. 26.
Friend Al: Well Al don’t be surprised if you pick up the paper some a.m. and see where I’m gone and you may think I am just jokeing Al but I am telling you the truth and I am glad Florrie is fixed so she can make a liveing for herself and little Al because I wouldn’t bet a nickle I will be alive by the time this gets to you.
I guess I all ready told you the kind of birds we got in our Co. Well the worst one in the bunch is a guy named Sebastian and of course he would have to be the one that got the bunk next to mine. Well Al you remember me writeing to you about the little runt that throwed that guy’s trombone away, well his name is Lahey but we call him Shorty on acct. of him being so short. Well I hadn’t payed much attention to this here Sebastian because he has always got a grouch and don’t say nothing only to mumble at the officers when they ask him some question but Shorty knows him and last night he told me all about him and he has been pinched 50 times for stabbing people but he has got some pull or something and
