Last Men Standing - 9/3/1916

Camp Willis, O

Sept 3, 1916

Dear Dad: - 

Mother's letter of the 1st. rec., rec. letter & card from Marion. Got a letter day or two ago from Merrick Hill, and one from Al Saal.

Well, 4th, 5th, 8th Regiments, Battery, Cavalry, Signal Corps 2nd Amb. and 2nd Field Hosp. have gone, about 7,000 or 7,500 in all. Only about 2,000 left.

Getting pretty darn lonely around here now. We still expect to get out of here by Sat. next.

There are about 30 or 40 Toledo visitors at our company today.

Weather has been great, nights fine for sleeping.

Feeling fine and anxious to get moving. 

Love to all
Howard

Got a nice letter from Leona yesterday.

The above is listed as a "novelty postcard" from the UA archives. Guessing that Howard wouldn't have had much to do other than to "dream" about going off to El Paso.

As quickly as Camp Willis went up, it was dismantled just as quickly, later becoming Upper Arlington's business district. When all was said and done, Camp Willis itself was seen as somewhat of a debacle for the Ohio National Guard. Many of the men who came to Camp Willis enlisted amidst a period of great patriotism - they were ready to stand and fight for their county. However, the site for Camp Willis wasn't ready to receive them, which is why many other states' units were called to the border before Ohio's. Guardsmen arrived to shortages in equipment and drilled for weeks without any news of when they would be moved to the border. Understandably, morale was low, considering the men had enlisted with the understanding they'd be moved quite quickly to battle the Mexicans. "Either go into Mexico or go home" was a popular slogan for troops at Camp Willis.  (Kingseed)

I found some interesting information about Al Saal on Magicpedia (who knew?). Al was a few years older than Howard, perhaps a friend of the family. He gave his first show as a magician at age 18, dressing in Spanish costume, doing card and cigarette manipulations. He is known as being the first magician to manipulate fully-lit cigarettes. He eventually retired from the "business" and became an undertaker.