mber one
captain who had fifty wounds in his back, and he had them dressed
without a single cry. I have seen them gassed, and I have seen them
shot to pieces with shell shock, and yet the worst suffering I have
seen in France has been on the part of boys whose folks back home have
neglected them; boys who, day after day, had seen the other fellows get
their letters regularly, boys who had gone with hope in their hearts
time after time for letters, and then had lost hope. This is real
suffering, suffering that does more to knock the morale out of a lad
than anything that I know in France.

Silhouettes of Suffering stand out in my memory with great vividness.
One general cause of suffering in addition to the above is loneliness
in the heart of the young husband and father, who has a wife and kiddie
back home.

I remember one young officer that I saw in a Paris hotel. He had been
out in the Vosges Mountains with a company of wood-choppers for six
months. He had come in for his first leave. His leave lasted eight
days. Instead of going to the theatres he sat around in our officers'
hotel lobby and watched the women walking about, the Y. M. C. A. girls
who were the hostesses there. They noticed him as he sat there all
evening, hardly moving. After several nights one of the men
secretaries went up to him and said: "Why don't you go over and talk
with them? They would be glad to talk with you."

"Oh," he said, "I never was much for women at home, except my wife and
kid. I never did know how to talk to women. Especially now, for I've
been up in the woods for six months. Just let me sit here and look at
'em. That's enough for me. Just let me sit here and look at 'em!"

And that was the way he spent his leave, just loafing around in that
hotel lobby watching the women at their work.

"This has been the loneliest day of my life," a major said to me on
Mother Day in a great port of entry.

"Why, major?"

Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out the picture of a
seven-year-old boy and that boy's mother.

Suffering? Yes, of course I have seen boys wounded, as I have said,
but for real downright suffering, loneliness is worst, and it lies
entirely within the province of the folks at home to alleviate this
suffering. I have seen a boy morose and surly, discouraged and grouchy
in the morning. He didn't know what was the matter with himself. In
the afternoon I have seen him laughing and yelling like a wi