Army Form B. 104--82

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More house-clearing today, and we think the last of anything personal to the family has been removed from Louie and Mac's house. The above fell out of a bunch of stuff I was looking through after we got home this afternoon. It turns out to be one of the most poignant documents I've ever come across. The death notice of one Thomas Morris, 19209, Private; Machine Gun Corps: killed in action on the 29th of August 1916. The [form] letter is signed for a Captain, Officer in charge of Records. Tragedy subsumed in bureaucratic process. A working man's life's end reduced to a bald statement of fact for his widow.

 


 

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