Aldus Kegerreis to Bloomsburg State Normal School students, August 16, 1918, Letter.

Transcript: Somewhere in France, August 16th, 1918. My dear Bloomsburg friends, Ha! They accredit Sherman with saying that war is hell, but most of us think that he must have been to a tea-party surrounded by a number of ministers- that is judging from the barbarous methods resorted to in modern warfare. We are inclined to feel that he didn’t put it half strong enough for some reason or another. But be that as it may, I am glad that I’m here and putting forth every effort to do my bit for I look at it as a duty and a privilege to participate in this great struggle for the protection of the rights and honor of all civilized nations concerned. I can’t tell you a great deal about details but you doubtless know according to reports that we have received from the States- that we have been in active service ever since our great drive started and don’t know but that we may be in a month longer before being relieved and going back for rest. I had no idea that troops would be in active service so long before being relieved, but you can readily see that it wouldn’t be wise to change too often because those engaged have the situation better at hand than new troops coming in to relieve them. You may be sure that I am exceedingly proud to belong to the division that I do, for they have indeed proved themselves worthy of upholding the honor of their state and have fought most fearlessly and most courageously never knowing what it meant to retreat for whenever they took a position at whatever cost they were determined to hold it- Gee! But we admire those boys and will take off our hats to them any day for they have indeed done their bit and then some for they have made wonderful sacrifices- and when I say this I am referring to particularly and almost solely to the doughboys- of course the rest have done their bit, too, but it was the dough-boys who made charge after charge for a town or some dense woods literally filled with machine gun nests and manned by both men and women ordered to hold their ground at any cost- and many a German barrage were they called upon to go thru and many a charge did they make without an allied barrage to advance under for protection. Of course it is need-less to say that we weren’t very busy at times for we were- but we had only one particularly busy shell about two weeks ago which lasted for about three days- my work is at the dressing station. Our company is divided into three sections as it were- 1st a dressing station section consisting of three crews, four privates, a corporal and a sergeant and one or two commissioned officers (physicians) constituting each crew. 2nd, we have twelve or thirteen ambulances with ten crews consisting of a driver and an orderly for each crew. 3rd, a section of fifteen or twenty men who do litter bearer work- and 4th I might add that the remaining men constitute the other details that come along both temporary and permanent- cooks, kitchen help, sanitary work, guard or mechanical work. Then we have a truck with a driver and me or two orderlies and our company furnishes the major and colonel of our battalion with an orderly permanently. This just gives you a brief idea as to the nature of our work. It may or may not be of interest to you. At present we have a dressing station at two different places and several of our best men are in detached service at still a third dressing station. There isn’t necessarily any iron-clad or set organization, but the idea is to render the best and quickest service possible when a critical situation presents itself. As a rule we are between our infantry and artillery and see all the action that anyone could wish for, because we are never out of the range of Fritz’s guns and my! How he does love to get the range of dressing stations and bombard them. Some or all of us have at one time or another been under shell fire (high explosive, gas and shrapnel) machine gun fire, sniper’s fire, regular barrage fire and worst of all subjected to being bombed during air raids. At night, I’ll tell you right now that when Fritz takes it in his head to load up a few of his bombing planes and makes it his past time to take a trip across the lines and drop a few of those packages, ordinarily call bombs, along the line he does indeed subject his victims to the most cruel torture and hell is no name for the results brought about by those beastly and bastardly Huns. But it is merely a matter of time and how much it will cost in money and in blood until it is all over and Prussianism and everything that goes with it will be crushed forever. That week of rainy weather hindered the allies quite a bit more than it did the Germans. The latter are offering quite a bit of resistance here just now, but our line is holding very nicely and as soon as we are prepared I have confidence that they will be pushed back further and further. They have the advantage of position, too, at present but we’ll get them. Personally, I am well and have been feeling fine ever since I came across. I have had a rich and incalculable experience, and with it all I am glad to say that and have been extremely fortunate only hope that it may continue. The last week or so it has become absolutely necessary for us to live in dugouts as far underground as possible for safety, and even then a direct hit from a bomb wouldn’t save you, that from a shell might- depending upon its kind and size. The days are all alike to us- hardest thing in the world for us to keep track of, the days of the week and the day of the month, don’t know what Sunday means. There is no particular time for sleep and rest, you snatch it whenever you get a chance. If you work during the day, you stand little chance of getting much rest at night, for then is when there is the most action. Just about the time you get settled you hear the buzzing of a bombing plane or the gas alarm sounds and you have to adjust your mask. The latter may happen as many as five or six times during the night. Bill takes a great delight in mixing a few gas shells in with the others every once in a while merely as a surprise and to make things interesting. There is much that I might write, but this will give you a faint idea of what we are doing and the nature of the life over here. I never could quite conceive how it was possible for the boys to be in a position so as to be unable to take a bath and change clothes for several weeks or even a month, but