The Schmidt Bros. store quoted a letter from a Sutton soldier in this ad during World War II. The ad appeared in The Sutton News on September 16, 1943.
The writer says he'd been overseas for eighteen months putting his arrival in theater at about March of 1942, pretty early in the war. We have to guess from the context that he was in Europe or North Africa, or perhaps in some staging area - England? The Normandy invasion was still nine months away.
The ad was soliciting for the Third War Bond that businesses and individuals were helping the government sell to help equip and support the troops in both war fronts.
The reference to the No. 18 Shoe Stamp tells us that at least some ration stamps had expiration dates probably to discourage or even prevent hoarding, black marketing and other forms of deceit or fraud.
The Soldier's letter tells us something about the hardships of simple living conditions for the troops in WWII. The worst housing hardship I can claim from my military days was two years in a mobile home in Wichita, Kansas which we outgrew one afternoon in the Fall of 1969 when our twins were born.
