A letter from a Soldier to his sister 

Ernest W. Hall

Company F

 Camp Lewis 12/19/1917

I will tonight write you a few lines and thank you ever so much for the most welcome letter I got from you a couple days ago. Glad that you are well. I am feeling fine and getting along fairly well in the army considering circumstances, such as weather & so forth. It’s too bad that you hadn’t heard from me in such a long time, but it must be the fault of the mail-system here at the camp cause I know I answered your former letter. They make mistakes here quite often with coming and going mail but they can’t really be blamed of course there is an immense lot of letters and packages to take care of. But I admit that I’ve neglected writing to (you) cause I ought to known that the letter went lost when I didn’t hear from you sooner, so I should have written again. I _____ you being worried about me being you didn’t hear from me but we are still as Camp Lewis but I wish we were out of here now cause it’s raining all the time almost for the last 5 weeks of course we didn’t have to be out in it all the time but all the same it makes it miserable, but we must be men and stand such trifles without complaining if we ever want to be successful in this war. This is only small portions of what we must endure to get thru before we done our duty. Well as I say, we are still here but we don’t know how long it’s liable to be orders out any time to move and the sooner the better. There has been several rumors out that we were to move sometime to Palo Alto, San Diego, Honolulu, Philly? Islands? New York, France and so on. The latter is most likely to be true when it’s time for it. We are being drilled pretty hard now, we all have a rifle a piece to take and it’s some job too. We have to stand inspections of arms every Saturday morning and if the officers find a speck of dust grease or other dirt on the rifle, the man in question must stay in and clean the gun in the afternoon while the rest can go anywhere they want so it pays to be particular. If the men would not be punished in that way, soon everybody would neglect the gun in the first class shape, and you see the gun is the soldier’s best friend. Well sister I am not what they call a “buck” private no longer. I have been promoted to first class private and that is just what I’ve been striving for since I came up here. I have also been acting corporal for about six weeks but I would sooner not have the job because I got to be on my toes all the time and show a lot of ___ in order to set an example to my squad. A squad consists of 8 men including the corporal and it’s the corporal’s duty to drill those men and make efficient soldiers out of them. So you can just about imagine what a job that means in a drafted army where we have every type of man to contend with. The greatest difficulty consists in that when we give these men an order they must still take it too personal, by that I mean that some of the men think that a corporal is trying to be bossy and smart or whatever you would call it, but he is doing no more nor less than repeating the Captain’s orders, but you see it takes time for some of the men to realize the importance of a corporal, but things being organized very fast. 

I saw your deal letter that you were to leave your place last Wednesday and that you are going to stay in L.A. Well I wish that you may find a good place there. I think it’s more life there too so I am sure you will like it. I had a letter from just a few days ago. He is working in Waterloo, Iowa. I was very glad to hear from him. The kid was lucky enough to escape the draft this time anyway. We haven’t got a great deal of time to ourselves any more especially as an acting non-commissioned officer. After the day’s work is done we have to attend a sort of school for an hour or more, the Captain or one of the Lieutenants as teacher. It’s getting late now so I must close for this time and hoping to hear from you soon. Greet Auntie for me.

Ernest Hall

P.S. I wish you a merry Xmas and a happy New Year.

Pages 2-7 of Albert Hall's Letter