Dear Bess:

. . . You know I have two breast pockets in my blouse. Naturally you can guess whose picture stays in the left-hand one. I keep Mary's and Mamma's in the other. Yours is the one you sent me at Doniphan and it has never left me from that day to this , nor will it ever. It's been through all the trials and tribulations and happy moments same as I have. I have looked at it many, many times and imagined that you were there in spirit, as I knew you were, and it's helped a lot--especially when things were blue and it would look as if I'd surely blow up if another thing went wrong. I've never blown up and my disposition isn't so very bad. That picture saved it. The biggest worry I've ever had was when I heard that the original of that picture had the flu a nd the happiest day was when that letter came saying you'd walked uptown. . . .

We are having another spasm of moving. There have been orders out twice to move up back to a dirty, little old French village. . . . It's my opinion that we'll stay there until Woodie gets his pet peace plans refused or okayed. For my part, and eve ry A.E.F. man feels the same way, I don't give a whoop (to put it mildly) whether there's a League of Nations or whether Russia has a Red government or a Purple one, and if the President of the Czecho-Slovaks wants to pry the throne from under the King of Bohemia, let him pry but send us home. We came over here to help whip the Hun. We helped a little, the Hun yowled for peace, and he's getting it in large doses and if our most excellent ex-mayor of Cleveland [Secretary of War Baker] wants to make a hit w ith us, he'll hire or buy some ships and put the Atlantic Ocean between us and the Vin Rouge Sea. For my part I've had enough vin rouge and frogeater victuals to last me a lifetime. And anyway it looks to me like the moonshine business is going to be pretty good in the land of Liberty loans and green trading stamps, and some of us want to get in on the ground floor. At least we want to get there in time to lay in a supply for future consumption. I think a quart of bourbon would last me about forty years.

I hope you have a most happy birthday and that you never see another one without me to help celebrate and then may they go on without end. Remember me to your mother and Fred and Frank and Natalie and George and May and just keep writing when you f eel inclined, because I love you

Always,

Harry