Page:This side the trenches, with the American Red cross (IA thissidetrenches00desc).pdf/7



From camp, from battleline, from shipboard the soldiers and sailors of the United States are sending a message to the people on this side the trenches. It is a message that is variously expressed. Sometimes it is to be read between the lines of a letter such as this:

Camp................, December 10, 1917

"To the American Red Cross:

"I wish to extend my sincere thanks to you for going to aid my wife and child whom I asked you to help last week. My wife wrote me that you came to see her. I highly appreciate this. I can soldier better now.

"Yours sincerely, "............"

Sometimes a sentence or two may carry it. Thus another man in the service writes:

"I have heard how wonderfully the Red Cross has taken care of my family. That alone is enough to spur one on to use the best that's in him."

Again this message from the men in the army and navy is told without words. What letter could convey it more clearly than the act of the sailor who gave to the