At War44-11-2874Camp Follower

Words at war. I started out feeling sorry for arms-wise. But if you could see what I've seen, if you could see what they've done in this town, they'll cheat you and leave you holding a bag every time.

They're rotten, just plain rotten. I have no use for any one of them. They're nothing but the camp followers. The National Broadcasting Company in cooperation with the Council on Books and War Time presents another one of the most widely discussed programs in America, Words at War, dramatizing the most representative books to come off of this great world conflict.

Tonight's program is based on Camp Follower by Barbara Claw. Her story, as told in Camp Follower, is familiar to thousands of women who have shared the same experiences. But to the rest of us, it brings the realization that the much maligned army wife has been doing an important, if unrecognized job of morale building.

We present Camp Follower in a special radio dramatization by Priscilla Kent. There are many kinds of Camp Followers. There is the stray dog who comes from nowhere to make his home close to an abundant army mess hall.

There is the merchant who moves his business into an army camp tom and trades his goods for the crisp bills and shiny silver the government pays to its soldier. And there is the woman who can't follow, neither for money nor for food, but because for the time being she feels herself practically a part of the Army, the soldier's wife.

The Jeffersonian, leaving on track six, for pictures, for life's first days. I had always bled the process of shoving, waiting and dodging my way through Washington D.C.'s Union Station, but on April 1st, when I caught the Jeffersonian to leave Washington for good, I loved the whole familiar doll procedure.