Camp Mills, N.Y August 30, 1918

Dear Pa and All:

Well, we are at Camp Mills, New York now. This surely is quite a ways from home. I wish that you could have been with me on the trip from Camp Grant to this place: I saw such a lot of interesting things.

There is one thing I want to mention and that is how the Red Cross treats a soldier; they are so good. At nearly every large city we came to they gave us ice cream and cigarettes. At one town they even gave us milk.

The journey over the mountains was swell and we followed the Hudson River for about ten or fifteen miles I should judge. They surely have some large steamers on that river. But from Hoboken, New Jersey to Brooklyn, New York, was the nicest of it all. We went across New York harbor on a great big steam boat and we were just a little way from the Statue of Liberty, which is surely the finest piece of work I ever saw. And then I don’t want to forget to mention that we went under the great Brooklyn Bridge and the East River bridge was swell.

Yesterday I got a twenty-four hour pass, so a lot of us boys went to New York City, and we came back to camp this morning as we had to be here at twelve. I saw a whole lot of New York City, as we rode around in a big bus; it only cost me 20 cents. I can now say that I was on Broadway, as the hotel where I slept is at Ninety-Sixth Street and Broadway.

How are Ma and Arnold?

I surely have a fine job, Bugeling is one of the easiest jobs a fellow can get. I don’t have to do any guarding like that, so that makes it pretty soft for me. It is a funny thing about army life, because a fellow can’t say that he just exactly likes it, but if I had my choice to either stay or go home, I don’t know which I would pick and the longer one is in it the more he gets used to it.

I suppose Arnold will have to go, too, pretty soon. Tell him that it wont be so bad, as a man gets treated just as good as he can expect if he behaves himself, and does as he is told.

I haven’t gotten any mail for about a week and a half, but expect to get it any day now.

We sleep in tents now. There are eight men in each tent. I hope to receive a big long letter from you soon.

Your son, Harvey H. Bertelson