Male Call

Like soldiers everywhere, Communist Czechoslovakia's troops enjoy getting letters from their girls.* Last week Czechoslovakia's Military Enlightenment Officer attempted to take all the joy out of mail call. "The stuff you used to write your girls," he told the soldiers, "is not proper for a member of the people's democratic army." Instead of "vain talk of love," he continued, "you must tell your girls about the experience of being built into new human beings for service in a new and stronger people's army. Tell them to write you about their experiences as tractor drivers, factory hands or members of the collective farms. If your girl friend will prove her truthfulness and determination on the economic battlefront and you on the battlefield, there will grow from this bond the new kind of love . . ."

In future, he added, soldiers' love letters would be censored.

* In Korea last week, the fighting men of the U.S. 1st Marine Division gathered for a long-delayed mail call. More than 1,000,000 letters had accumulated for the leathernecks as they sailed along Korea's coast, waiting for the delayed landing at Wonsan. When the letters were doled out in what was probably the biggest mail call in the Corps' history, one marine expressed relief. Clutching a bundle of letters, he shouted: "They still love me--all six of them."

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