Sunday, January 20, 2019

Respect Soldiers Who Served at Home, Too

An anonymous “Southern Girl” wrote a letter to the editor of The Caduceus, Camp Greene, Charlotte, N.C., which was published Jan. 18, 1919

Public Forum Editor:

I wonder why some writers insist on making such a distinction between the soldiers who did duty overseas and those who were not so fortunate as to get to go? Why will they persist in being so unfair? And it is very unfair. For, didn’t the boy who was still in camp on this side when the armistice was signed offer his all when he enlisted just as much as the one who went to France? When one has offered himself to his country it isn’t his fault if he doesn’t get to do active service at the battlefront. He would have gone and “played the game” just as bravely and gloriously as did those who went, but everybody couldn’t go.

Someone had to stay here to “back up” the boys at the front and to train others to take the places of those who fell on the field. And beside, if would have been a physical impossibility for Uncle Sam to have picked up his whole army and set it down in No Man’s land, all at one jump.

He did wonders as it was, had one continuous line of khaki going in that direction, just like a great crowd lined up before a picture theater to see Charlie Chaplin in his “latest.” Someone in that “Charlie bent” line has to be the last and take a back seat, or maybe not get in at all, and most assuredly through no fault of his own. So, in this war, everybody couldn’t get a front seat. And a very short time after the khaki-clad folk began pouring in Fritz found the “show” wasn’t going to end just as he had anticipated, so he asked Uncle Sam to close the door. Naturally, there were those in line who didn’t get in to see the show.

And, if I were not a girl and it wasn’t so much trouble to get my hat off, would take it off just as quickly to the lad in khaki who did his fighting “over here” as to the one who did his “over there.” He is just as much a “real fighting” man, if he didn’t get a chance to show it, and just as brave. No doubt in many instances his lot was the harder of the two. Didn’t he have to face the “flu?” Then I should think the monotony of ordinary camp life would be more trying than the excitement of the battle-front. The boys who have been tried on this side have not been wanting either, no, not by a long way.

They did all their duty gloriously, the ones who went across and the ones who didn’t Let us give them one great, joyous welcome back home. The boys wearing the gold stripes deserve all we can do for them, so do the ones wearing the silver. They have, one and all, earned them a thousand times over.

Three cheers for every lad in khaki!

I have written these few little words because I wanted to let Sergeant Sellers and others to know that there are those who know how to appreciate their position. Good luck to every one of you folks who did your fighting on this side.

--Southern Girl

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