Sidney D. Light's WWI Diary, Postcards & Letters, 329th Battery Book Accounts

Sept 25, 1918 (no location allowed on outside envelop)

My dear Alberta,

....I am glad that you received the card announcing my safe arrival overseas, and I hope it won’t be long until you hear that we have landed safely in New York again. The weather here has been quite wet lately and cool, more so than in good old Michigan at this time of the year.

I just finished a letter to a friend of mine in one of the Infantry regiments in action at the front. His company did some great fighting recently but was almost entirely wiped out. Of course, he was one of the remaining and I was surprised to hear through a friend of mine here that he was still alive. His company was composed of fellows from my home and I knew personally nearly every man in the company, including his captain and 1st lieutenant. It doesn’t seem to me it can last much longer with all the setbacks that Germany has had lately and I am of the opinion that we will be back by next year this time.

We are located at present at an artillery camp and are fairly comfortable, of course not as much so as Custer but a lot better than it will be a month from now. We expect to leave here about next week for some place along the line. Will be back aways for a while I expect.

The little book, "Protection" that you inclosed in the last letter I received, contains some real good stuff and I have read from it a good deal lately.

In regard to the French women, I can truthfully say that I have yet to see one that can take the place of an American girl, especially a certain one that I am pretty well acquainted with from Highland Park. Guess.

Sept 26 (same letter)

It is raining again this morning and the boys are out firing in it. The guns seem so much louder on a day when the air is heavy like it is today. According to last night’s paper, the Yanks are handling them pretty rough and in fact all the allies are winning, but of course we take special interest in what our boys are doing....