[NOTE: IF YOU ARE READING THIS SERIES FOR THR FIRST TIME, IT'S BEST TO START AT THE BEGINNING]

Special posting of next three letters -

May 4, 1917 / Oswego, NY

Dear Aunt Nel,

Your letter received this morning and am answering it herewith. The picture I'm enclosing is so damnably rotten (pardon enthusiasm) that I'm truly ashamed of it. But I promise you, I am going to have some cabinets taken when I get to Mohawk with full dress uniform and will send you one of those.

As to my girls, Gee! it's a regular moving picture show to keep track of them. Long ago it was Rosella Shand, then Marcia Saxton, then Jacqueline Burton, then that blank blank creature Nellie, and now I'm trying to be serious with the poor ruins[?]. The minute a guy gets serious they think he wants to get married PDQ! Now I am through! From now on I am going to have a bunch on the string and just be on friendly terms with them all. I, at present have two in Mohawk, one in Milford, four in Peekskill and so far have three here in Oswego and a lot of old timers in Oneonta, and then Anna, why she's just a pal but she's extraordinary that I like her a little more than the average, just the same as you'd like one of your soldier friends better than the rest.

I have such a string there in Peekskill that I had to keep a book with my dates all slated, sometimes a week ahead! Honest! But the girls here are a pretty rough lot! I've been around with five or six different ones, but say, they're pretty raw! I'd hate to be seen in my home town with them! Girls are curious critters, believe me!

In as much as, through personal experience, I know O.D. is attractive to the fair sex, why it's a questionable color! It stands for drunks, for roughnecks, and everything good or bad! You never see an outfit of soldiers but what have a few bad ones, and that makes us all ashamed to go any place! It's honor enough to wear a uniform when you're going or coming from service, real stuff, but around barracks & towns, it's a disgrace.

Sure, if I have to go to Europe, I shall bring back all the souvenirs I can get in "my trunk." I shall have my valet make a specialty of packing curiosities, etc. But laying all sarcasm aside, I shall try to get everyone such things as they would like, if we go, which is very probable.

But I'll disagree with you here - If our troops do go across, we'll be put in the trenches. France, above all things wants the clean limbed, clean shaven, clean cut, alert and valiant American soldier, in O.D., with Springfield rifle, and under the Stars & Stripes in the trenches. She wants us for the prestige of such a force, for our marksmanship and "nerve". They know the kind of fighters we are - they remember the Spanish - American war days, and need just that type of men.

Well, I didn't get that much sleep last night and must close & get to sleep. (I've a bunch of booze-fighters under me and they bring up whiskey and beer and I have some time of it nights keeping them on the job! It's truly a man's job to hold control over such an out-post, with such a personnel under me, as I have.) Will tell you more about my troubles later.

Hastily / Clyde

May 9, 1917 / Oswego, NY

Dear Aunty -

Well-----! Pretty good lecture you gave your delinquent, wayward little nephew! You've surely called his bluff for fair! Sleep! You said I didn't look as though I was getting enough sleep! Why I was sleeping about 4 hours out of every 24 then! Now I've got control over the gang in my charge and sleep all night and truly feel better - although I am now sick with la grippe! I am so hoarse I can scarcely speak! And ache, why I am sore & stiff in every joint in my body! Say, if you have a lecture ready for delivery in your brain on the subject of "Girls", please give it to me! It's the biggest, most complex & unreliable & uncertain subject of the day! You can't expect a crippled old bachelor like me to last long with the girls, now can you? I've cut them, in this town - they're the wrong sort - too expensive!

You mentioned reading, why I found six to eight hours a day in the armory office with fiction or varied military compilations. I am deep in the subject of tactics now, and at the rate I have been acquiring the deeper and more complex knowledge of the big things in the military, I can hope for a commission if I re-enlist in November. Here's hoping - and I assure you I am working! How good Lieutenant B- would sound to me! And now I've cut girls, movies, roller skating & everything for my tactics and the schools of soldier, squad, company, battalion, & regiment! I have the 1911, 1906, & 1914 Infantry manuals by heart and know every word in the Field Service Regulations & Manuals of Guard Duty, 1st Aid, and engineering. I shall soon be so deeply engrossed that you musn't be surprised if I neglect my correspondence a bit!

Yes, I liked Mr. Britling Sees It Through [Mr. Britling Sees It Through is H.G. Wells's "masterpiece of the wartime experience in south eastern England." The novel was published in September 1916] very much! I want to read it again when I get home.

And by the way, I have compiled in condensed formation the complete history of the 1st N.Y. Infantry and will be able to give you all the details this summer if I can be at "El Refugio" this summer.

Well, I'm getting a cramp in my right hand & arm, have a lot more letters to mail, so will close, trusting I'll hear from you soon.

Most affectionately / Clyde

May 24, 1917 / El Refugio

Dear Aunt Nell -

Your card of last Thursday just reached me from Oswego. I am home again and mighty glad of it! And how good it seems to be here at El Refugio again! I have the "Juanita" my power boat in the water - and talk about boats! Zowie! As Uncle Bill Todd used to say "it's a hummer!" She's surely fast, seaworthy and a mighty attractive little launch! I'm just in love with her; engine troubles and all! HaHa!

Well, truly, you should have surmised that me, of all chaps, wasn't any ladies man! Ye Gods! me being much of a lady killer! Wow! So let loose, turn on the current - fire! Ha Ha!

What do you think about Wilson's turning down Teddy? What do you think about sending troops across? (The first galls me and the latter meets my approval.)

You have my sympathy on the tooth ache! I was laid up in a grouch & ulcerated tooth a week at Peekskill! Tooth ache is Sheridan's [?] definition of war - Ha!

Oh yes! Next week I expect I'll have quite a family. Miss Anna is coming for a couple weeks and also Grandma Spoor. I suppose I will be eternally busy teaching my little Irish girl how to cast a fly, net a fish, throw a bait, pull a pair of oars, hike, identify birds, trees & flowers and if the water gets warm - to swim! Some job - for an old "bach" like me!

Uncle Elmer Spoor is here today. We fished last night until 1:30 this morning and he got up early & fished while I prepared breakfast. He's sleeping here in a chair while I get off my daily letters.

Well, I must close, and hope I'll hear from you soon.

Yours sincerely / Clyde

Observations - Anna is starting to stand out from the rest; we learn that Clyde is a reader; and we don't know why, but at the end of May we find Clyde back at El Refugio on an extended leave.

Up next - There is no correspondence in June 1917, but diary entries begin on July 15 and correspondence available to me resumes later in the month. We will also find Clyde stationed in Mohawk, NY and that the NY 1st Inf. is federalized in July. Look on May 4, 2022 for the first of the diary entries and resumption of correspondence.