The Soldiers Think of Home

What do U.S. soldier-husbands think of their wives?

Major General Manton S. Eddy, who takes a fatherly interest in his men, found time to wonder. Interested by a TIME report (Feb. 26) on how wives back home were meeting the test of war, General Eddy suggested taking a poll of officers and men in his XII Corps, which is part of Patton's Third Army.

The TIME report had shown that there was no great moral collapse among the women. They had grown harder, more self-reliant; mostly they were lonely; the things they chiefly wanted in this world were their husbands, home and babies.

These answers, according to General Eddy's poll, suit their husbands fine. A modest sampling of some 100 soldier-husbands in Eddy's corps showed that they were looking forward to exactly the same things.

Most believed that their wives had been faithful to them. What if they discovered they had not been? Although most answered bitterly that they would neither forgive nor forget, a surprising 40% of Eddy's traveled veterans thought they might even do both. Wrote one worldly soldier: "You're damn right I would, for I've been no saint."

Enlisted men had more inflexible ideas about how their wives should be spending their spare time: movies, luncheons, bridge parties, they thought, should be the limit. Officers, for the most part, were more tolerant: they would not object to their wives going around with men so long as the relationship was strictly platonic.

After seeing the women of other lands, almost to a man they were more content than ever with their women back home. Some comments: "I have learned a deeper respect for my wife and the average American woman."--"She sure will look good to me after seeing some of these women."

Eddy's G.I.s expected little trouble in adjusting themselves to normal living again. They indicated that they were willing to go to any lengths to make their wives happy. Some even promised to help with the housework. Said one G.I. wistfully: "She won't have to pick up after me."

Would they like to find that their wives had changed?--"Are you nuts?"--"Just let her be the same as the day I left her."

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