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Conger Reynolds correspondence, August 1918
1918-08-28 Conger Reynolds to Daphne Reynolds Page 5
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happiness and so learn the lesson of the sweetness of sacrifice for a good cause. Let us hope they will. Like you I am torn by the thought of the lives we are losing in the fight. Already many fine American boys have died. There was Joyce Kilmer, the poet, who wrote a fine, touching tribute to his dead comrades. And two weeks later he went out of his line of duty to charge a machine gun, and died. And so many more like him! I told someone yesterday as we passed a long line of ambulances that I wished we might win without giving life and limb and blood. No one of us, of course, but will gladly sacrifice himself to help win; but also none but aches with regret over seeing his countrymen die. They are such magnificent men, most of them little more than boys in the freshness of their bodies and the openness of their minds. Yet they are already tempered steel in strength of muscle and determination. Every time I see a bunch of them at drill or others on the alert in the trenches I thrill with admiration of them. If our leaders prove to be anywhere near as good organizers and tacticians and strategists as the German leaders there will be no stopping us. We've got the man power. Being closer to the feeling that dominates in the actual fighting than you are I have less concern than you have about the loss of life
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happiness and so learn the lesson of the sweetness of sacrifice for a good cause. Let us hope they will. Like you I am torn by the thought of the lives we are losing in the fight. Already many fine American boys have died. There was Joyce Kilmer, the poet, who wrote a fine, touching tribute to his dead comrades. And two weeks later he went out of his line of duty to charge a machine gun, and died. And so many more like him! I told someone yesterday as we passed a long line of ambulances that I wished we might win without giving life and limb and blood. No one of us, of course, but will gladly sacrifice himself to help win; but also none but aches with regret over seeing his countrymen die. They are such magnificent men, most of them little more than boys in the freshness of their bodies and the openness of their minds. Yet they are already tempered steel in strength of muscle and determination. Every time I see a bunch of them at drill or others on the alert in the trenches I thrill with admiration of them. If our leaders prove to be anywhere near as good organizers and tacticians and strategists as the German leaders there will be no stopping us. We've got the man power. Being closer to the feeling that dominates in the actual fighting than you are I have less concern than you have about the loss of life
World War I Diaries and Letters
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