Wed. Aug. 29, 1917

Dear Marie,

I am waiting to be surprised with you “bright idea.” Let ‘er shoot. Some
fancy dress and ribbon, I’d say. If you had one of these bugles tooting
in your ear every morning at 5:15 you wouldn’t need Andy to pull you
out. A large megaphone is set up on a post and a bugler puts his music
box up to the mouthpiece of this horn and sounds the different calls.
The one that sounds best is “taps” at 9:45 10:00 P.M. First one bugle
away over the hill will sound then a nearer one, then one still nearer.
Finally the bugles in back of our barracks will blow. The “soup & beans”
call sounds good, too, in a different way. This morning we had the usual
hour of foot drill, an hour of heliograph practise, an hour of wireless,
and an hour and a half of grooming horses. The heliograph consists of
mirrors and shutters mounted on two tripods. The shutter is opened and
closed by a key and makes the dots and dashes in the telegraph code. The
mirrors reflect the rays of sunlight to the distant station thru the
shutter when it is operated by the key. Under favorable conditions it is
possible to send a message 120 miles at the rate of 8 words per minute
(40 letters). We have been having it pretty soft this week in the
afternoons. We go to the corral, get our horses and feed them on the
grass by the roadside in the woods. We have over 100 horses for our
company and it keeps us busy watching them. I like to “monkey” with
these horses; they are beginning to show the results of a good care and
feed, too.

I was talking to Sergeant Williams today and he said I could feel sure
that I will be transferred to the photo section pretty soon. You see
they are simply waiting to get enough men to ship together and meanwhile
they give us the regular signal training as photography is a branch of
the Signal Corps, the same as a telephone, telegraph, radio, and visual
signaling, you see the Signal Corps is the information dept. of the Army
and the photographer gives his information in the form of maps and
record photographs. Well this will have to be enough. I wish I knew if I
could plan to come to Beloit for a day. You can bet Lyle and Ethel would
have nothing on us. I can’t help but think of all the good times we had.

Yours,

Forrest.