Do Soldiers Think?

Sirs:

TIME Letters, Aug. 30: "Thinking" Army (And Navy) (And Marine Corps)? Yes--they ARE thinking. . . .

After the war they will be voting--ten to twelve to 15 million votes of fighting men. These . . . voters will swing solidly behind an American program, national and international in scope and outlook. . . . This is really a job for the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and other fighting men's organizations. Politicians, the isolationists, the appeasers, the pacifists . . . had better ... go 'way back and sit down. . . . We listened to them after the last war and let them run things, and they failed us. We mean business this time and are not in a mood to stand for any guff.

My ship helped take strong, virile American young manhood into the Solomons, and my ship also brought some of those same men out, wounded and sick and broken in body, but with spirit still alive and unbroken. I've listened to their spoken thoughts, and they do in fact mean business.

San Diego

Sirs:

. . . It will take much more education than H.E. shells and slit trenches to produce the postwar millennium . . . where nine million new veterans will be intelligent, cosmopolitan, informed voters for strong, fearless statesmanship.

Soldiers, after all, are just ordinary American citizens in uniform. It's not giving away any military secrets to say that most of us . . . still prefer the sports section and the comics. Only three or four out of a company get TIME or any other periodical on current events. . . . Friends of mine in other camps bear me out that soldiers do little thinking about world affairs. . . .

I'm an enlisted man in an infantry division, where I see the average soldier. . . . It will be very dangerous if civilians at home put on rose-tinted glasses and look to us to ensure the winning of the peace.

(S/SGT.) EDWARD T. LADD

Camp Breckinridge, Ky.

> TIME, ever a believer in yeast, points with hopeful pride to Sergeant Ladd's "three or four out of a company."--ED.

Short Snorter Service

Sirs:

I recently acquired in currency change a "Short Snorter" (TIME, Aug. 31, 1942) dollar bill which I feel sure was passed inadvertently. . . . This letter reprinted in TIME would seem to offer the best potential medium of reaching the member involved before his predicament results in financial embarrassment.

A few of the signatures on the bill are John J. Fredericks, "The Baron," James Tangney II, Windy Dillon, "Flying Dutchman," G. Van Hagen, and Roger Eldridge.

The bill will be returned to its owner posthaste on receipt of the correct name together with his present address.

G. K. CHADWICK

Chicago

Crow

Sirs:

About that character portrait of Westbrook Pegler opposite Joe Curran's in the August 30 issue of TIME and which Pegler's [newspaper] column . . . implies that you stole: can you tell us the story?

L. R. GARRETSON

Jenkintown, Pa.

> It's a short story. Pegler went off halfcocked. Four days later he publicly ate crow.--ED.

Sirs:

Westbrook Pegler, literary genius of the toilet-paper press, objects to his picture's appearing in TIME.

So do I.

KENNETH J. MOWERY

New York City

Warner Bros. & the Rumble Seat

Sirs:

Re This is the Army (TIME, Aug. 16); more power to Warner Brothers' "rumble-seating" with the President. TIME and every single being in this U.S. should be in that rumble seat. . . .

Let TIME and those of the audience who wish to "dim the lights, steal out softly," but I prefer to stay with the President and Warner Brothers.

GEORGE D. COWLEY

Pensacola

Sirs:

. . . YOUR OVERLY CLEVER REVIEWER SOMEHOW MANAGED TO EXTRACT . . . SOME PRETTY SILLY AND UNWARRANTED WISECRACKS. . . . AS FOR THE SOPHOMORIC INTERPRETATION OF OUR ATTITUDE TOWARD THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, LET ME MAKE IT PERFECTLY CLEAR THAT THIS STUDIO RESPECTS THE OFFICE AND PERSONS OF THE PRESIDENCY AND WILL CONTINUE TO DO SO NO MATTER WHAT THE PRESIDENT'S NAME IS NOW OR MAY BE IN THE FUTURE. THIS STUDIO DOES NOT HOLD WITH THOSE WHO HATE THE PRESENT INCUMBENT SO MUCH THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO DERIDE HIS HIGH OFFICE OR THE IMMENSE RESPONSIBILITY IT CARRIES. THIS STUDIO BEGS TO BE EXCUSED FROM THE CURRENT FASHION OF CARPING AND DENIGRATION. . . .

CHARLES EINFELD

Warner Bros. Studios Burbank, Calif.

> Shame on Warner Brothers for rocking the boat with talk about "those who hate the present incumbent."--ED.

Sherlock Holmes Message

Sirs:

During a recent rereading of . . .Sherlock Holmes, I was surprised to find the following sentences in The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor, which Conan Doyle wrote at about the turn of the century:

"It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same worldwide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes."

. . . Has the spirit of that ardent believer in communication with the dead finally succeeded in getting a message across?

HEDDY KRAEMER

Quiriquire, Venezuela

Artillery's 2%ers

Sirs:

I feel quite certain that I am speaking for all artillerymen everywhere in expressing thanks for the excellent article on the G.F.T. (TIME, Aug. 23). . . . [But] the term "two-percenters" did not originate . . . because the artillery caused 2% casualties to their own infantry. . . . The 2% refers to the over and short ends of the dispersion pattern.

When an artillery piece is laid on a target and fires a large number of rounds, there will be a distribution of the bursts in depth due to small differences in the powder, projectile and piece. . . . Occasionally a round lands in the 2% zone, either over or short of the center of impact. Such rounds are tough on observers but tougher on anybody they are likely to hit. (A friend of mine in Tunisia got an "over" in the 2% zone which flushed an entire German battalion from behind a hill where they had been defiladed.)

Fortunately the ability of the artillery to go into action promptly and displace quickly has obviated the old rolling barrage. Two-percenters' causing casualties to our own troops arc now a thing of the past.

LLOYD JONES JR. 1st Lieutenant

Camp Beale, Calif.

* Name withheld by request.

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