21.

June 30 

Dearest darling:

Things are going swell. We have really got the socialist 
competition going between companies and today awarded 
the battalion banner climaxing the first week of the comp-
etition. Company I won it this time but it was close and 
the chances are that they will lose it next week. On the 10th 
we are holding a big affair jointly with the unified Social-
ist Youth League. Edwin Rolfe is writing a mass chant 
which someone will translate into Spanish and it will be 
chanted by a mass chorus of 50/50 Spaniards and us. There 
will be several skits, based on local and battalion events 
and mainly in pantomime, which goes over best with the 
Spaniards and our own people too for you can't keep 
2,000 kids out and they make too much noise when the 
dialogue is in English for anybody to hear it, even the 
actors. The companies are developing some swell initiative 
as to methods of work in political work---spelling bees in 
which instead of spelling the guys gather in a circle and 
answer questions like how many men in a group and why 
and what is their function; what parts in a rifle; why this or 
that kind of formation, etc. They all kick in a peseta in a 
pot before they start and the last one left takes the pot. 
They also play sticking the tail on the donkey, but they 
are not blindfolded and instead of a tail they have paper 
pieces that fit into a large cross-section drawing of a rifle 
and they have to stick the piece in the right place. They 
do lots more things, all during their free time, which keeps 
them out of trouble and at the same time makes them 
better soldiers.

Wars are funny things and especially wars in Spain and 
there's a million interesting things that some day I'll be

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