Vol. 1, No. 5 Tuesday, September 19, 1944

My good friends, at this time, I would like to present the greatest newspaper in the world. I'd like to present the most humorous newspaper in the world and the most popular newspaper in the world. But this is war and when we can't get what we like, we have to take the substitute. So here it is -- THE BLUE ROOM BELCH. 

I write so much to you military people that I feel as if I am quite military myself. I do have a military physique, my chest is retreating and stomach is advancing and the rest of my body looks like it was on a furlough.

One of the gang wrote in and said he wanted to hear the dope. Well, to him and all the rest, here I am, the dope, Neighbor.

In this issue I'm not going to beat around the bush with a lot of nonsense. I'm going to be like the hen who built her nest in the middle of the state highway. I'm going to "lay it on the line."

Who knows but what this may be a V Edition for all of you who are heading the kraut eaters. And I do hope it is. So should this be the case, I want to be able to face at least some of you with as little fear as possible.

Instead of a Christmas dinner in Tokyo, Burma or Berlin, lets make it drinks for the house at the Blue Room. I can recall many a Christmas when you met Santa Claus with three sheets in the wind and a new necktie dragging the bar at the Op'ry House. So what the hell is to keep you from playing a return engagement this Christmas. As much as we can gather from our local papers, all of you are on your way, so keep going. Don't tell me we have to go through another holiday season with a lot of 4F's and a few feeble elderly.

I still think that they should have called on Benton, Pappy Norris and myself to clean up this mess. Picture the old dog with that one good lamp of his sighting down the barrel of a BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle); I imagine it would be enough to make anyone shudder. Even the enemy. Of course, Pappy Norris would go OK, but me, I differ from the powers that be on certain things.

They tell me a soldier's first duty is his willingness to give his life for his country. I should think first duty would be to make the enemy give their life for their country. Maybe I'm wrong. But granting that all of you are doing OK by way of your Uncle, I still think we might have been a help someplace.

But in all seriousness, should it be another Christmas away from home for any or all of you, you can bet that Kroner, Benton or myself join the whole neighborhood in wishing you God's richest blessings for this Christmas and many more to come.