s that they tell me the national guards is shy of officers and
maybe I may not stay a corporal long after I get there but will get
something bigger though a corporal can't be sneezed at.

Your pal, JACK.

CAMP LOGAN, Dec. 14.

_FRIEND AL:_ Well old pal here we are in sunny Texas and its been pretty
cold so far but nothing like it was up at Camp Grant and of course it
don't never get as cold here as up there on acct. of this being further
south.

Well nothing happened to us on the way down though of course it would of
been good night nurse if it had got out what road we come on and when we
left and even at that we seen some bad eggs at several different
stations that looked like Germans that might of tried to pull something
if they had a chance but we watched them like a hawk and they was scared
to make a false move.

Well Al what do you think they have made Shorty Lahey a sargent down
here only thank god he isn't in my Co. or I would be up in front of the
court's marshall for murder. But him being a sargent shows they must of
been pretty hard up and you can bet they was tickled to death to see our
bunch roll in. Well Al if he can get a sargent I will be a gen. in a
month. He says to me yesterday he says "Well old sport I wish they had
of put you in my Co. and you would do the rest of your drilling with a
dish towel." So I said "Yes I would."

Well after thinking it over a while I decided I better write to the
little girl and tell her where I was at because I asked her in my
farewell note for her to send me her picture of herself and if she sent
it up to Camp Grant maybe 1 of them rummys might get a hold of it and
open it up and then write back to the girl and kid her about it and I
figured maybe if I let her know I was down here that maybe she hadn't
sent the picture up there yet. But I didn't give her no encouragement to
write to me here and all I said was that if she ever happened to be in
Houston and I happened to be in town on leave maybe we might run into
each other but I just said that jokeingly because her town is about a
100 miles from here and what would she be doing a 100 miles from home
and besides even if I seen her on the st. I doubt if I would know her
though I generally almost always remember faces though I can't always
remember their names. But if she seen me and spoke to me I would pretend
like I didn't hear her and duck because it would only make it tougher
for her to talk to me because I