18 February, ’17.

. . . While on this subject, I’m afraid there are going to be some fierce ructions here and there in Canada, after the boys come home. I read an article the other day on “Slackers — the Army is Watching Them.” The fellow who wrote this was an officer and he’d got his ideas from censoring the boys’ mail. Every one who writes to a soldier tells him about the slacker who did not go: the girls — his own people — every one, and he writes back and says what he thinks of ’em.

He is too busy, and life is too jolly uncertain, to worry much about it — now. But wait, when he is home and feeling safe and good. Do you think he will want to pal in with a chap who stayed safe? I don’t think. Do you think he will not rub it in now and then — maybe roughly? I wonder if the slackers have ever thought of this. If they have — well, I’m sorry for them; their thoughts can’t be pleasant.