August 19, 1918


                                                                        “Somewhere In France”
Dear Mother & Dad:-,
            I am going to write a letter today even though I cannot mail it for a few days. We are on the go again and at present are laying off for a few hours at a place where there is a Red Cross Canteen and a YMCA. I expect mayby you are thinking of me most as much as I am thinking of you today. Twenty-one years ago today I never thought that I would spend my twenty-first birthday as I am “somewhere”, I know not where, in France travelling in a box car. I am glad now that I enlisted for now that I am of age I am almost ready to go into the real thing instead of just registering and waiting for the draft and the preliminary in the states, which I have gone through, before I would be ready to do my part. I think you are glad too. Clarence and I are still together and one of the Denver boys. Harve, the other one was assigned to another division from the last camp. He is a dandy fellow and we sure hated to part with him but had to do it anyhow. Harve (Harvey Hansen) & Tom (Tom Clifford) are there names. We three have great plans for after the war. Tom has had two years in the Colorado School of Mines & He is going to finish after the war & Harve & I are going with him. The war can’t last very long now & if we are not in school next fall I am sure we will be by Sept 1920. In the mean time it is a sinch that we will all get on the active firing line before the war is over. Thats what we are here for now and nothing else matters much at present. Still it is kind of nice to have some definite plans for what we will do after we beat the Dutch. Yesterday was the fifth successive Sunday we have spent travelling. It has become a habit for us to say, as the end of a week approaches, that we will be sure of getting out of wherever we are by Sunday. We are having a lot of fun out of it all even if it is not the most luxurious way of living. There are many things of intrest that we see each day that I can tell you all about when we get home. Meanwhile I will write as often as I can. It has been a month & almost a week since we left Camp Jackson & all that time with no mail so I am getting pretty anxious for the time when we will stay in one place long enough to hear from home. I will close now & will add a little more when we reach the end of our journey.
                                                                        Lots of love to all,
                                                                        Harry
Aug. 22, 1918:- We are now located in a permanent organization. Clarence & I were lucky enough to get in same outfit. But it is not artillery. It is amunition train. We should worry. We lost Tom. Don’t know what they put him in. This is written by very poor moonlight. Write this address:
            Pvt. Harry Faris
                                                            Co. D.
                                                            2nd Am. Tn. *
                                                            A.E.F. France

P.S. Send me a bunch of newspapers now and then. I think they will come ok.

                               




* Ammunition Train

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