Corp. Hollie McDonald Writes Ethel Hughes of Uncertainties of War, 1918

From The Rockingham Post-Dispatch, Dec. 5, 1918.

Letter from Soldier Boy

The following letter was written to Miss Ethel Hughes of Entwistle by Corporal Hollie L. McDonald of Co. B 120 Infantry, A.E.F. France, whose home was formally (formerly?) here.

Oct. 21, 1918

I guess I had better answer your card before the Kaiser knocks me off.

I have been killing so many Germans I haven’t had time to write to anyone, and believe me I have to my part of them. We have got them on the run now and we are going to keep them that way. I think we will be in Berlin by Xmas. I have been over the top five times and haven’t got a scratch yet. Isn’t that lucky! But who knows? I may be the next one to fall.

I have had boys killed on each side of me. And have had holes shot through my clothes by machine gun bullets. It makes a fellow wonder if he will get back to the U.S.A. And just before the boys go over the top we know that all of them will not come back. But we don’t know who the unlucky one is going to be. I remember one day (he was a friend of mine) and he was going to be out on a raid and just before going out he came to me and said, “Hollie, here is my pocket book; keep it for me,” and he told me goodbye, and when the time came for them to come back I was waiting anxious to see if he was with them, but I saw he was not and he never did come back. We don’t know if he was captured or killed. But I hope he is living. But what hurts one so much, Ethel, is when you come back over the battle field and see so many old friends lying dead or blowed to pieces and with arms and legs off. One has to have lots of nerve and grit in him to see it through. When you get to thinking of your friends back in old Dixie you could kill all the Germans.

Well, Ethel, I had better close; supper is ready and I have just got back from a hospital and you know when you come from a hospital you sure can eat. I was sick but not wounded, all O.K. now, though.

Hollie