I am asked to send an appeal from our soldiers in North Africa for subscriptions for the American Red Cross. But this is not any appeal - merely a statement of fact. Because I know that when American citizens realize that the Red Cross is the constant and faithful friend of our fighting armies, any donation requested will be over-subscribed in a single day. The Red Cross is the single agency in campaign that brings to your brother, husband, son or friend those comforting things that are not part of official equipment. Wherever your particular soldier is and whatever duty he is performing, the Red Cross is nearby to learn of his wants and to satisfy them. It hands him a smoke when he has none of his own; it gives him a razor, tooth paste, a piece of candy or some other item that may, for the moment, seem to him to be the most important thing he could get. In Red Cross clubs, big and little, wherever there are troops concentrated, it provides a homelike atmosphere, where the soldier gets good coffee, reads a book or a magazine, or just relaxes among people that he knows to be his friends. Can you not imagine what that means to him? If he is in the hospital, special attention is given by some Red Cross woman who will bring to him anything possible to add to his contentment.

In the past two years North Africa has been stripped of those articles that you obtain daily at the corner drug store. Here the soldier cannot walk in and buy any of the things that are so necessary to his comfort, sometimes almost to his existence. The Red Cross takes your subscription, transforms it into useful aid and brings it to the soldier, freely, cheerfully and efficiently.

We have need for the Red Cross every day, everywhere. I cannot possibly describe to you the extent to which all of us depend on it. Perhaps it would just be best to tell you that I have yet to meet an American soldier - and I have spoken to hundreds - who does not say to me with real enthusiasm: “That Red Cross is certainly doing one fine job.”