"A V Letter for You" pamphlet

Pamphlet for Victory Corps encouraging young people to stay healthy; includes suggestions for keeping good health in preparation for the war effort.

Victory Corps

State Archives of Florida, Series S908

1950 (circa)

pamphlets

eng-US

Text

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Postwar Florida (1945-1968)

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mid 20th-century

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Health and Safety

Victory Corps

b. Don't get too friendly with relatives or the boy or girl friend when either you or they are spreading germs.
c. Stay home from school (easy, huh?) at the beginning of a cold. Your gleaming personality will just have to be missed one day. As far as your services go, it's a lot better to miss one day now than fifteen or twenty days later. And it's even more important that you don't cause fifteen or twenty other people to miss fifteen or twenty days. You do the arithmetic, but it still goes.
4. Avoiding Pick Ups: Germs in large numbers: What about the germs that you pick up?
a. You hands? Do you wash your hands frequently, especially after the toilet and before you eat? Before school lunch? (Hmm!-?)
b. In water or milk? The raw milk fad went out with the goats! Do you drink only pasteurized milk? (If you're not convinced about this, for goodness sake ask your science teacher to please take the patience to explain it all to you again!) Are you sure you drink pure water? How do you know? Do you drink it the safe ways?
c. Other people? Do you avoid close contacts at public or social gatherings when colds or epidemics are prevalent? Has your maid at home had a recent x-ray for tuberculosis as well as a blood test and a general health examination? Have any members of your family had tuberculosis with whom you've come in contact? If so, ask your doc about this.

Fourth, We Eat Nutritious Food. We eat what we should first, then what we want. And by the way -- on this "eats" topic -- the gals who still get silly notions about "no breakfast" or any other weird diet fads should be put in Leavenworth as traitors to the cause - their own cause as well as the country's. You know the "eight essentials" for nutrition! Don't know how you could miss! But do you really do these:
Drink a quart of milk a day, fixed one way or another?
Eat one citric fruit (or tomato) and one other fruit every day?
Eat two servings of leafy green or yellow vegetables every day?
Eat one or more potatoes every day?
Eat one serving of lean meat, poultry, or fish every day?
Eat an egg every day -- or at least four a week?
Eat whole grain enriched bread or cereals (two servings) every day?
Eat some butter every day?

Fifth, We Play Safe and Prevent Accidents. In the Victory Corps we've all taken the Red Cross First Aid course and practice it wherever we can. The girls are going hog-wild over the "Home Hygiene and Care of the Sick" course offered by the Red Cross, too. Our Victory Corps has sponsored several safety projects around school by surveying the school grounds, physical education equipment, hallways, and all over the place to find safety hazards. We have appointed "mend-up" and "fix-up" committees. You know how to play safe at home, on the streets, and at school. Do you?

Sixth, We Boost Morale Through Mental and Emotional Preparedness. We've been giving our "lazy" attitudes a sound and needed spanking. We've turned in strong for doing things rather than just talking about it. We're trying to control ourselves mentally and emotionally so we don't fly off in a dead-heat excitement and do nothing but bungle. We try to be a bit more composed and poised -- just keeping every thing under control, you know! Morale to me means just four things. Don't know how you feel about it, but here's what I think it means:
Sound Body
Sound Mind
Sound Spirit
Sound Action
Keep plugging hard all day long, like men and women in service are doing, and sleep soundly and well all night long. Budget time and activities so that more worthwhile things fit into each day. Live most and serve best.

These six points I've just rattled off might sound like a big order to you. But if you've been really getting the most out of life, you've been doing them anyway. Nothing different. We just make sure now! And I, for one, am mighty glad we are making sure! You know, the reason I'm telling you all this is just to see whether or not you and other high school-ers haven't wised-up, too! I know that I sure feel a lot better than I used to! I feel like I'm really doing something now! I get four times as much as I used to! And I'm not selling liver pills! But you hafta really be sold on something to go on the way I have about this. And, buddy I'm here to tell you I'm sold!

Call it the Victory Corps -- Call it "physical fitness" -- call it "being prepared" or whatever you want. It's the doing it that really counts. Nobody can prove it to you but yourself, but you'll see! By golly, you'll feel really good! Feel like beaming at everybody! You'll feel proud of yourself, of your family, of your home town, and of your country. You'll feel like taking on Hitler and the Japs all at one fell swoop! And until we all really do feel and act that way, we'll be just dreaming about Victory!

So let's go, gang! Let's go get that Victory! and no FOOLIN'!

Yours for the better days to come,
Johnny Doughboy J.


a V letter for you

DEAR "GANG"

You know all about the Victory Corps, don't you? All high schools, of course, are doing plenty for national defense but may not call it Victory Corps, so even if I talk about Victory Corps it doesn't mean this letter isn't for you. We all know we're all needed in this war, you and I and everybody, and not just later, either, right now! Uncle Sam started the High School Victory Corps to organize our efforts and put them to the most needed use.

The Victory Corps, of course, are like big high school clubs, with certain requirements for general membership and additional requirements for participation in each of five service divisions - the Air, Land, Sea, Production, and Community Service Divisions. For general membership, no matter which service division of the Victory Corps you're in, we know, first and foremost, that UNCLE SAM NEEDS US STRONG. We must be FIT to fight on ALL FRONTS. We MUST be in GOOD CONDITION! You know, they say it took the Army and Navy sixteen weeks to get the first selectees into good enough physical condition to be able to take real military training! They're not going to have that much time to spend on us! So where'll we be unless we get ourselves in good condition? Right behind the eight ball, that's where! Not us! We're going to be ready!

What's more, you know, it should be our own job to keep ourselves well, strong, and fit. Good night! With all the opportunities this country hands us on a silver platter, we're pretty soft, weak-livered so and so-s not to make good use of them. After all, the privilege of living well and healthfully is a big part of what we're fighting for. Always we need to keep feeling tops for good time, for jobs, and for just plain getting the most out of life! It's really too bad we need war to come along to remind us about it. And that's the TRUTH!

But now that war has come along, we sure don't want to be that soldier, sailor, marine, or pilot who just "can't take it". There's no Victory in that stuff. Nor do we want to be the man or woman on the production line that lets the flaws slip through. Nor the airplane watcher who's too tired to stay awake and watch. We're not going to miss the boat! We don't want to be the "little man who wasn't there"! We're going to be IN THERE PITCHING - AND PITCHING TO WIN. That's us. And that's what the Victory Corps' for, too.

That's why membership in the Victory Corps requires us to be in good strong health to begin with. The whole Victory Corps program, as I guess you know, is plenty tough! No sissy stuff about that little club! You take some of the extra-strenuous work-outs we're getting in physical education these days, for instance! The Coach is sure handing it out! And our best is what this is going to take.

The exercise program is doing plenty to help us develop the strength, stamina, endurance, and coordination we need for lines of service. We all need all we can take.

But that's the point! Some of us can't take it! Some of us can't take the extra strenuous part of the physical education program mostly because we're just lazy. Gosh, I know! Lots of times I'd sure rather skip it. But we're got to remember. Anyhow, if we'd have kept in shape like we should have all along this stuff would be child's play. We made it tough for ourselves, so we shouldn't gripe about taking the consequences. So we've just got to charge into it. Think what some of the rest of them, there, are having to charge into! 'Nuff said, huh?

But some of use can't take it because we really can't. There are often the very ones who think they can, too, and that's bad. No kidding! It may really be hurting the cause more than helping it when some of us try to do the strenuous work-outs. That's because something or other is holding us back. You know how much tougher it is to run the mile with a cold tagging along than it is when you're feeling top-notch. Well, that brings up probably the most important basic part of the Victory Corps business.

We're required to have sound bodies first. What do we do about it? Well, nothing weird or miraculous. Just a few things we should have been doing all along, anyhow.

First, We Have a Complete Health Examination. It's the first thing you bump into when you try getting in the service. The Army and Navy put it first. After all, it's the only way you can really know for sure just where you stand (or how you manage to stand at all)! The doctors are fewer and busier these days, but if you really keep plugging, your family physician will take care of you sooner or later. Make sure you get a good exam, too.

Second, We Have Our Defects Corrected. No use having the exam unless we do something about it. It shows what needs to be fixed up -- teeth, eyes, lungs, anything else. It shows what kind of physical education we should take to do us the most good, too. Say, lots of us know right now, even before an exam, lots of things we should do. We've been a bunch of cowards, that's what! Take the old teeth-fixing business! How we do put it off! But maybe we've finally grown up to the fact that a dentist hurts a lot less when we get to him early. The same "stitch in time" applies in correcting other defects, too.

Third, We Keep Feeling Well by Preventing Communicable Diseases. Keep feeling tops, my friend. Stay away from those microscopic undercover "germ"-maniac Hitler-lovers! Don't wait till you sound like wheezing whoosey crying around for sympathy. That's when you will need a doctor in a hurry and won't be able to get one! "Remember the Flu" in the last war? If we had an epidemic this time, it might be even worse! Colds, malaria, typhoid fever, smallpox, "flu", pneumonia, tuberculosis, hookworm, and others are all too prevalent there days. What to do? Don't tell me you don't know, cause you do. You've heard it from the cradle up! Time to really do it now! How about:
1. Having a vaccination and typhoid shots? If your younger brothers and sisters haven't had these and a diphtheria immunization, tag them around to the doc with you and get them fixed up too.
2. Doing all you know to do to build your body resistance. Sleep enough? Eat enough of the right foods? Keep dry? Wear enough clothes? And all the rest. You know 'em. If you don't, for goodness sake ask your mother -- or your teacher.
3. Protecting the next guy! If you have a cold:
a. Don't put your best pal on the receiving end of one of your long range sneezes. Cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze. Clean handkerchiefs aren't rationed!