Bolté Letters

From England on Eve of His Departure for North Africa

[The first Dartmouth recruits in the King'sRoyal Rifles, British Infantry, sailed from England as commissioned officers in early June,headed for duty in North Africa. Abstractsfrom Chuck Bolte's most recent letter to hisfather, dated May 23, follow— ED.]

WHAT'S A WAR without shell-fire, air raids, and torpedoes? We may see everything, strange places and new mountains and deserts; win the beginnings of Victory. I am fed to the eyes with inspections and demonstrations. Tom Braden, old Wisdom-Man, says it: "You drill and talk and drill and practice about how to fire and load and what a man looks like in front of your sights till pretty soon you want to get out and get a crack at a real man in front of your sights. And coupled with that you get so damned bored by kit inspections, repetitions, and red tape that you forget the life you lived before and you don't give much of a damn whether you die or not."

If he feels it after two months, imagine how we feel, who know not only how to load and fire but how to keep a platoon supplied and reasonably comfortable in the field, and how to put in a platoon attack that amounts to getting not one but several of those bastards in your sights. I find after 3 weeks here my education was pretty fair after all. I don't know much but I can learn; though it's the toughest job yet. I wonder about how I'll be under fire, but here comes my chance to learn pretty quick, and I'm glad of that.

Of course, I care i£ I die, but it's not nearly so important as it was a year ago. The physical beauty of the world, love of friends and the family, honesty and melody in art, and hard work resulting in something tangibly satisfactory, are all worth living for. But beneath almost ceaseless levity and laughter I feel oppressively

the foolishness of most of man's effort and the vanity of most of what we call life. Yet I have a childish faith in many individual people, and believe that life is good insofar as you make it so and insofar as the Gods let you get away with it.

Craig Kuhn wrote me this week, "I hope you want what you get" which is a mature and friendly wish. I want this week, anyway, to fight and risk myself. If they get me (I would not cause you pain but let's face it) you must know that I had no reservations—regrets, of course, for I had more of the good things of life than most people, and still have—but at least no reservations, and no question but what I am doing the only thing left for me to do.