Letter #9

Letter 9

Letter #9 Boulder, Colorado, May 24, 1918

Dear Violet,

Well, I’m happy tonight, for I received a long-looked for letter. My, but it seemed a long time to wait. But I am full of patience, more than you think I have. Well, I am beginning to like my work better now than I did before, because drilling was very tiresome. We began Monday with our classes. Now you will be surprised to learn what I have been doing for the last two days.

Monday, to begin with, we were aroused from our homeward dreams at 5:20 a.m., dressed and washed, had roll call, then ate at the mess, and at 7:00 a.m. marched to the football field, drilled for an hour, then went to our classrooms. Those taking concrete and construction were given jobs of making a road and some were put to building wheel barrels, which was my luck. At noon I looked like a real blacksmith. But l had a smile on my face, like you always know me to have. Then we marched to our home and had mess again. At 1:00 a.m. we returned to our job which changed to building a bridge, which we finished by 4:30, then time to begin our homeward journey. Then we ate at the mess, after mess, a good shower, then one more hour drill, then talks. Tuesday the same, except I was put to shoveling gravel through a screen for us to use. In the afternoon we went to see a rock crusher, from there we went back to the sand pit and I was put to building a tool shed, but we did not finish it.

For you can see, I do not have much time to worry. But, dear, I can always find time to think and write to you. You ask me about the way I felt about you. Well, Violet, words cannot explain to you my feeling, but if I ever get away from here and get the chance to come home, you will see me and things will be as you say. The call for retreat has just sounded, so I will continue later. You may think it a long time and, well it has been long to me as I have just gotten through. It is 8:30 p.m., so you see I have just one hour to write and do a little studying, but we are so tired after our day’s work, we lie on our bed and the first thing we know we are to sleep. Here I am complaining again. The only thing to do now is to take it merrily and make the best of it.

I have told you that some of the boys are morally unclean, and are infected, so they have been stationed off from us and are compelled to do things by themselves. Violet, dear, thank God that is it not me that has been found in such a condition. It would almost kill me to be found in such a way. Most of them are known now. Maybe I am going too far in telling you things that would shock you, but I can trust you as I always have.

You asked if the buildings at the university are as pretty as ours. Violet, there is nothing as pretty as our dear old Utah. Even the girls, without being rude, are not as pretty as ours in Utah. Probably the reason I can’t compare is that I have not been looking for them. The girls do not seem to care for the boys, maybe they are afraid of the Mormons, but we are as good as they are. The buildings are beautiful and they have many lawns, but they are not as well kept as ours at home.

Well, I have almost forgotten to tell you the most important part of the letter. I did not really know what it was like to be away from home and friends, and not having even a church to go to. I surely felt better after attending the services which were held Sunday afternoon in one of the rooms of the university. We had with us one of the members of the stake presidency of the Pioneer Stake. He took charge. And by the way, he is working with me in the concrete and construction department. In the meeting there were 42 present. The rest were downtown playing pool or at the barracks. We took some cups and bread from the armory in which we were stationed and the sacrament was passed, and each took it with the spirit with love and harmony toward each other. After that we heard a talk by one of the brothers. We also have a great deal of missionaries here who seem to take part, and are willing to do without asking. I asked Clyde if he was coming and he said yes, after he came back from downtown, but he never came. Boulder is about as big as Ogden, or larger. We are located on it near a hill. Well, dear, the first taps have sounded and I must leave off for I must be in bed in 10 minutes.

Hoping to hear from you with the most love you ever sent.

Your ever lover, Henry

(Just FYI: from my research)

11/11/1918, 10:59 A.M.: Henry Gunther is the Last Soldier Killed in WWI

In the last moments of WWI, new research has pinpointed who the last soldiers to die in combat were -- even though the armistice had already been signed by the higher-ups. The document was signed around 5 a.m. on the morning of November 11, 1918, but didn't go into effect until 11 a.m. In fact, the BBC tells us that on the graves of French soldiers killed after the war's end, earlier dates were inscribed out of embarrassment for their avoidable deaths. And then there are these facts about the last day's casualties: A shocking figure: the final day of WWI would produce nearly 11,000 casualties, more than those killed, wounded or missing on D-Day, when Allied forces landed en masse on the shores of occupied France almost 27 years later.

On that last day one American general's decision to capture a town so that his dirty soldiers could wash up resulted in around 300 casualties. The last British soldier to die was 40-year-old Private George Edwin Ellison, who survived almost the entire four years of that bloodiest of wars (almost a million British soldiers had been killed). Among his experiences, historians note that Ellison survived the first gas attack and witnessed the first use of tanks at the front. He was shot almost an hour before the 11:00 a.m. cease fire took effect.
Fifteen minutes before the cease fire a French soldier was killed delivering a message that soup would be served once the armistice began. And then there is the story of the two remaining soldiers whose lives would end in the war's final moments:

Just minutes before 11am, to the north around Mons, the 25-year-old Canadian Private George Lawrence Price was on the trail of retreating German soldiers. It was street fighting. Private Price had just entered a cottage as the Germans left through the back. On emerging into the street he was struck by the bullet which killed him.

But Pvt. Price's death at 10.58 was not the last. Further south in the Argonne region of France, US soldier Henry Gunther was involved in a final charge against astonished German troops who knew the Armistice was about to occur. What could they do? He, too, was shot. The Baltimore Private - ironically of German descent - was dead. It was 10.59 and Henry Gunther is now recognized as the last soldier to be killed in action in WWI.