After fulfilling that duty to Father, I am now writing this letter to you. There are boys here from all over the country, but especially from California and Oregon and Washington. We sleep in large cabins and eat all together. There are many boys from the Imperial Valley with me here, and as you know from my send-off, we have a good number from Fredonia. Of course, Harry is with me but there is also Everett Pike from El Centro, and Albert Nuñez and Sam Pinkerton, who were at the Fredonia High School with me. Others seem familiar, but I do not know their names. In this strange place they do not know whether to talk with us as friends or not. During our student days, if our eyes met by accident in the school building, we would have looked away from each other. But here it is different. We are surrounded by others we don’t know, and it is the Imperial Valley group with whom I have most in common. Because of the Hindu-German trial, I feel some of them don’t trust me. Of course, I do not blame them at all.

And there is so much feeling of competition! We try to impress the superiors through skill at running, or doing the obstacle course, or speed in digging a trench. Some boys try to dominate the rest of us, forgetting that we are on the same side.

I have been assigned to artillery for the 364th Regiment. They need boys who are good with horses, and ones who will not be afraid to be close to the action. I am proud to be in a mounted unit. I am responsible for guns and caissons and cannons, which we will cart in wagons.

Harry is by my side almost always and we sleep in the same bunk. I stay near him at all times and some of the other Japanese boys, and also, Chacha-ji, you will be happy—there are eighteen other Punjabis here—many from Jullundur and some from Ludhiana and Hoshiarpur. We met many of them in Stockton at Vaisakhi celebrations. There are so few that I do not want to think ill of any of them, but sometimes I wish they were not so obliging or that they mixed more with the Anglos. Sometimes the local boys mock our dastars, sometimes I feel that we are fighting them instead of the Germans. But our superiors don’t like that behavior and now the Americans have left us alone. So you were right, Chacha-ji. There is still race prejudice, but I don’t think it is of real consequence. The Negro boys stay by themselves in another part of the camp, and we do not see them much. We are told they will fight separately from us, yet be just as fierce. We are told the army functions better that way. Perhaps that is the case.

Yours,

Jeetu

Camp Lewis, Washington

5 November 1917