"I have been here just a month and will tell you about
the camp life here.
"All the fellows sleep in tents or barracks and the
tents are much the best, for you have your own bunch all the
time,
which isn't as noisy nights.
"We have Reveille at five A.M. and have ten minutes
to get dressed and line up for roll call. That makes a fellow
hustle
until he gets used to dressing quickly. We have a little
drill before breakfast and after breakfast we have more if it
isn't raining. We have supper at five-thirty P.M. and if we want
to we can get a pass to go up town at night.
"There are between thirty and forty thousand men in
this camp now and there will be more here soon. All the fellows
seem just like brothers. When one gets a box of candy or
anything good, he passes it around and lets the rest of the fellows
enjoy it too. Every state in the Union is represented in our
camp, and one gets acquainted with so many different people.
"The Y.M.C.A. down at Portland is doing a fine thing
for the soldiers here. There is a War Secretary with whom one
can leave his name if he wants to be invited out for a good
time on Sunday and a square meal. Certain people down at Portland
who are well to do go there and get a fellow's name and ask him
out. I think that is fine, although I won't put my name down
there until I get my uniform. I wouldn't look much like a soldier
without one. You know the government has so many clothes to get
that we have to wait quite a while before we get ours.
"We were on the road coming here about three days and
nights. It seems like a long trip but it was altogether too short
for me. At Spokane about a dozen of the Appleton bunch got
off and gave a rousing cheer for Lawrence. We sure made the depot
shake."