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Sierra Club Bulletin 



glad to hear from one of my 8:15 side-hikers. Letters are a mighty 

 welcome thing over here, and they can not come too fast and furious. 

 I am enjoying the best of good health. Am going through a wonderful 

 experience, and will have some great tales to tell you when I start to 

 carry my pocketful of nuts and raisins over the Marin hills once again. 



I have not yet run across any fellow Sierrans, but have my eye 

 peeled for them. Will be looking forward to hearing from you again in 

 the near future. A few lines from any of my club friends is a great 

 source of pleasure. Trust you are enjoying good health and awaking in 

 time each Sunday for the good old 8:15. 



With best wishes from 

 Julian C. Tormey, 

 182nd Inf. Brigade Hdqrs., American P. O. No. 776, A. E. F., France 



Somewhere in Belgium, 

 My dear Mr. Parker: November 14, 1918 



Well, here I am again for a little chat with you after a good many 

 days' silence. I say silence, but this means quietness of pencil and pa- 

 per, not of French 75s and iios and the 57 varieties of French cannon. 

 Since last writing you we have left the land of parlez-vous, and are in 

 this interesting country of Belgium. We side-door-pulmanned and road- 

 pounded our way here, and my present address is the usual "some- 

 where," but in a different land. My last letter to you was sent some 

 weeks ago, and since then I've been through enough fighting and other 

 interesting affairs to fill a volume. Much of my experience I will have 

 to retain until some day when we are sitting in a quiet nook somewhere 

 on Tamalpais and I can open up the flood-gates and pour my chatter 

 into your ears. 



Shortly after writing you last we went into action — "over the top" is 

 the popular phrase — ^^and for over a week I had my baptism of fire. At 

 first the sensation wasn't anything like a debutante's coming-out party, 

 and when we came out of the line, after giving the Huns a thorough 

 good licking, I had to admit that I knew just a bit about the flash and 

 crash of artillery, the whistle and bursting of shells, barb-wire en- 

 tanglements, dugouts, shell-holes, aeroplanes, fights, the "put-put" of 

 the machine-guns, tree-trunks splintered and severed by shells, ruined 

 houses, villages and towns converted into stone-piles, rain and mud, 

 hardtack and stew. The most annoying thing to me during our advance 

 was "Jerry and his Barrack Bags." Will introduce him to you. He is 

 any Boche aviator who comes sailing over (mostly during the moon- 

 light nights), with a load of bombs, and when he thinks he has the 

 proper range on some nice town or forest full of soldiers he lifts up the 

 tail-gate and down come the explosives. The nickname we've given this 

 projectile is "Barrack Bags," on account of the size of it. So moon- 

 light nights may appeal to the treaders of Lovers' Lane in California, 



