Sat. Aug. 11, 1917 Dear Marie, Won’t you please “open your heart” and take a chance on my understanding? I will never see you until I come home for good, and that is a long time ---- at least a year ahead. Please sit on my lap again and tell me everything. I wonder if you think my letters are too “soft” like Edgar & Grace? Do you? Mother sent me the pictures of you eating cherries and the in the canoe with the duck. I can picture you perfectly in your new clothes. Gee, but I am hungry for a sight of you ---- to look into those soft brown eyes, and hear you talk again. Wont you please talk to me as if we were together? I am going to wait one more week and then I am going to go to the Battallion commander, Moore, and ask him to transfer me to the photo-graphic section of the Signal Corps. Whether I leave here right away, or in six weeks, don’t count on seeing me again till the finish. I wonder why you call yourself my friend. Have you found that you can’t be a little more than that to me? Dear Little Girl, please be perfectly frank with me in everything. You can’t imagine how much I hate any kind of pretense. We passed the hat here this afternoon and bought a 25 Victor with some records. About 45 of us bunk in this room so we expect to get a good bunch of records. This morning the fourth & fifth sections of Co. A 6^(th) helped unload a shipment of saddle horses and pack mules from El Paso, Texas. Believe me it was a lively job to lead that bunch, two at a time, from the cars to the corral. One fellow from Co.B-6^(th) was sent to the hospital with a mule’s “thumbprint” on his chest. We were off this afternoon so I went to Leavenworth City, which is little larger than Beliot. A lot of fellows went to Kansas City for over Sunday. I am pretty near broke again as I won’t get last month’s pay until September. Blanche sent me some stamps ---- will you feel peeved if I pass some on to you? I don’t think your Mother will mind very much because you spoke on the stage. Congratulations etc. Now you will have to stop biting you nails. I got Vera’s card alright. And yours too, today. Did Lauretta get my letter? Be sure to tell me soon enough when you Chi. so none of my letters will there after your gone. Yours, Forrest