The vacationers are those who write about being tourists during their off time or plans of traveling to historic sites all over Europe as they get stationed around. This is the largest group of the three, possibly due to how these topics were unrestricted by the censorship of the time.[1]  Trips to Paris were considered rewards for the American Expeditionary Force (AEF). According to Historian Alan Brinkley, the AEF spent more time visiting France and the countryside than fighting any real battles in defense of France.[2] This was echoed by one Lowndes County soldier, one Lieutenant S. B. Johnston.[3] One of the best examples of this is the letter from Lieutenant Lee McCullough on September 10, 1918, during his tour in France.[4] In the letter to both his parents and the residents of Columbus, Mississippi, he writes about England in general and the town of Winchester where he trained. Most of the letter describes how he and his fellow soldiers spent their free time as tourists in these places.[5]  Even after the lieutenant is transferred over to France where the war was still being fought, the only sign of any conflict is the lack of men in the streets and the weeping widows whom he runs into.  While this certainly speaks to the death toll of the war, it is oblique.  Overall, the theme is that the war only marginally interferes with his goal to go visit many famous and historic sights while stationed abroad during the First World War. 

           

            The illusion the letters create is not that of the war as dangerous or bloody. Even a soldier on the front line, Clyde Baker, wrote only of the everyday activities he did moving from one battle to the next, with the worst of it being the destruction of the countryside.[6]   The writer’s intent is unknown, but some of the published letters are akin to vacation letters and downplay the horrors of war, possibly making the war less worrisome to those left at home or men being deployed overseas, but also speaking to their real interest in using the opportunity of wartime service to travel abroad.  

           

           

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