France

September 28, 1944

Dear Mom,

It was quite a surprise to get your letter with news of Johnny's trip to Nebraska. How did he like it? I have just vague recollections of stopping there for a few minutes while chasing back and forth to the coast.

We have a new major with us now whose name is Chandler. Actually, he is not new in the regiment but he is new with us. I learn now that he lives in San Francisco where he works for an advertising agency as a chief copy writer.

This letter is going very slowly as I had my sergeant improvise a fly swatter - they seem to be unknown here - and have been having myself a hey day, but it interferes.

We are enjoying almost unprecedented rest - over ten days of comparative inactivity. Results from my unit being reserve of one sort or another. We didn't mind it a bit except the weather, which has been something nasty and having to change locations. We had one fine spot: electric lights, running water, no shelling (most extraordinary!) and the men got a chance to see a few movies and take a hot shower under real showers. Perhaps I mentioned it before but one factory turned over its shower section to any who wanted to use it.

Now we are in an old cafe and bar - but a pretty clean place. Its redeeming feature is a kind of French bottle-pool pin-ball table. It's a small pool table with pockets set like a pin ball machine. You play with five white balls and a red ball and regular billiard cues (except these have lost their tips and the table is "dead"). The idea is to keep hitting balls into the holes without knocking over the bottle. It counts if you knock the cue ball in a pocket too, unlike regular pool. This makes us a great success at the game for I invariably did that in regular pool. The red ball counts double for any pocket it goes in and you keep using it for a cue ball as long as it is off the table. One thousand points to the game, but if you knock over the bottle you lose all you've made. A Frenchman showed us how to play, but no one seems to know what the game is called. We forgot to ask him and haven't seen him since.

This place is not so interesting as the other town. There we had a Town Crier who came around with a school bell at odd times. He read off his piece in a cascade of French. No one seemed to pay a great deal of attention and he read it but once. Yet soon the town buzzed with activity over the announcement.

There was a delightful routine. Every morning the villagers went to the bakery to get their round and long loaves of crusty, dark bread. (No one seems to bake his own.) They got their milk in thin necked bottles. Some of them went to church. About mid-morning the goatherd came by to take them all out to pasture. Cows would be taken out. In late afternoon, the cows would wind back through the streets, the goatherd returned and usually the fog-voiced geese would strut about for an hour or so. Villagers would gather in small knots of conversation until darkness sent them in doors. Finally, only the church bells sounding the hours, the challenge of the guard and the thump of artillery punctuated the stillness.

Yesterday, the general presented us with our Silver Star Medals and I'll send it on to you. I have also been awarded a Bronze Star Medal for meritorious service but these medals are not available for issue as yet.

I spoke too soon. Just received my Bronze Star Medal ribbon. The medals won't be made until after the war.

Love,

Bob

EXTRACT

September 16, 1944

GENERAL ORDERS

No. 65

AWARD OF BRONZE STAR

VIII. Under the previsions of AR 600-45, the BRONZE STAR is awarded, for meritorious service, to:

ROBER F. BURNS, 0-384203, Captain, Infantry, United States Army. For meritorious service rendered by this officer in connection with military operations against the enemy.

By order of the COMMANDING GENERAL: