American Red Cross Collection - Letter - August 25, 1918 - Dear Buddy ....

A letter written by a soldier in France during World War I to a buddy.  Dated August 25, 1918.  [Not Cataloged.]

Monday, Aug 25th

Dear buddy:
Tomorrow I'll be a civilian again + if you've been through the mill you know just about how much sleep I'll get this tonight thinking about to-morrow + When I get that little old discharge that gives the history of the cooties and mud I lived with during those twenty four months in sunny France, believe me bud, I'll be the most independent bird in these United States - and that means in the entire world +

Now that I'm resting up from a couple of operations it seems funny I should've been

-2-thinking so much about kick-ing the bucket and about that government insurance affair you were knocking in your last letter + But all I knew about it was that every time the windjammer blew payday I found that six-sixty had been docked from my pay, and when I was bumped off my folks would collect ten thousand [bones or bucks?] in honest-To real money + I knew the gov-ernment would come clean with the jack because I'd been putting what I didn't spend on [illegible] in a government bank, and had confidence in Uncle Sam's honest+

Well, yesterday I got the dope on the matter + made it my business to [comfree?] it for I want to protect my folks in case I should get a steady job pushing up daisies + Here's the way I look at the whole business: if a man thought enough of his people to tackle jerries - whether he tackled

-3-them at long distance or ran them ragged up at the lives - why that guy's not giving himself a square deal if he drops his insurance+

So you bet I'm keeping up my old insurance - the full ten thou' - at the same old rates + The rates good for five years with a couple of [jits?] added on; and I'm figuring - get this kid - I'm figuring that puts a few of us old timers that got banged up over there or over here will be among the missing before those five years are up+

When the first week in the month rolls around, I'm mailing in that a money order for six-sixty to the Bureau of War Risk Insurance in Wash-ington + I'll never miss that date or that jack and my folks will be able to keep on thinking that I'm a square shooter + I'll tell the world I did [illegible]

-4- them over there, and they're not going to think that the war raised cain with my ideas of duty + Me, I'm no slacker! Are you, bud?

Let this percolate, kid, I'm not getting a plugged nickle for writing to you this away + I"m just passing a good thing along to an old pardner + Here's muck in your eye! luck, old timer +

Yours till the next war, Red.

P.S. The Red Cross in your burg will give you more dope on this. Hop to it, toot sweet! R.

(Image scan, PDF. 5 Pages)