May 26, 1918. Dear Marie, We are still at Fort Leavenworth but still always expecting to leave the next day. The trip to Camp Wadsworth will take five days and we are having trouble getting pullman cars. Your letter of the 23^(rd) came yesterday noon and I was going to answer it last night but I started a letter to Gladys Warren, a sister of a good friend of mine, which was interrupted by Morse, who came down for a visit. He stayed until supper time and I walked up to his barracks with him. Morse is sure a fine fellow and I am sorry he and I did not get acquainted sooner. We talked radio, buzzer, and ground telegraph almost half the afternoon. Your telegraphic message was O.K. In your last letter you told me to tell you exactly what I wanted you to do, to please me the most so I am going to take that liberty. Regarding telegraphing I would advise you to drop it entirely. Don’t waste time on a thing of no value to you unless you find real fun in it. My pet weakness during the last five or six years was studying too much, too many different things. Radio and buzzer telegraphy, photography, chemistry and a half dozen other hobbies all had a hold on me and I spent time studying technical books which I might better have spent otherwise. I don’t want to pat myself on the back too hard but I believe that my understanding of the theory of radio is better than that of the average man in the Company and for photography, the Personnel Officer from Washington told Captain Murphy that I had the best technical knowledge of photography of any of the 80,000 men he had examined. But what have I gained by it? The long hours I spent at home studying these things have paid me back very poorly and I look back at that waste of time with a good healthy feeling of regret: So please let me caution you against studying too much outside of school. Of course photography is a worthwhile hobby which I expect to be of value to me. If you really like telegraphy as a recreation go to it but remember that swimming and outdoor sports of all kinds are absolutely the best and I would say necessary for a normal life. I am certainly glad that you have the opportunity to learn to ride and sure do hope that you will make the most of it. The drill book gives some interesting dope on riding and the managing of saddle horses. Spend all the time you can outdoors – swimming, hiking, bicycle riding, tennis or anything else. What wouldn’t I give to be with you this summer. Just when we have learned to understand eachother and love, we are separated. Marie you have my full unselfish love and it urges me to help you to my limit. You will never understand me, maybe, but my own sisters don’t either. In your last letter you hoped that my next letter from 7^(th), would be a “nice” one. Well I don’t know what you thought of the one I wrote last but I simply had to write that way. I told you that I would never mention my love for you again and I mean it. Do you realize that you are only fifteen (right?) years old and yet we talk of belonging to eachother. Marie I do love you and you only and I believe you love me – more than you should. It is dead wrong for you to think of me as you do. You are shutting yourself from other boys and that is one thing I am dead against. Of course I realize that you are too young to be going to theatres, etc., a great deal with boys – but anyway it’s your thoughts. Judging from your letters this Spring, I have put the idea in your mind that I am a little better in some ways than the next fellow – and then the more I said in the opposite, the more you believed it. Forget it. Well I will put it to you this way – You were only fourteen years old last year I think. We became acquainted and were together a great deal and I am sure that I learned your ways, your character and your whole self as well or better than my own sister. And even though you were, and are, so young, I learned to love you as I have never loved anyone else – and it’s the purest and most unselfish love anyone can give. The greatest thing I could look forward to would be to make you my own, and I feel positive that I never will marry unless it is you. For I never could be satisfied with anyone else after caring as I do for you. Now you must feel that I am in earnest and sincere in what I am writing. But I want you to know that I am almost sure that I never will marry – the war not being considered at all, yet I wish and hope that we can remain what we are to eachother, until you are say – well along in High School. Please tell me exactly what you think and be equally frank and honest with me. I do love you, Marie, and I do want you to love me, too, but please have other good friends among boys. It must seem queer to you to read this, but there are a great many things to think of and I want us to avoid any mistakes. With love, Forrest.