The Provost Marshal General declares that the mass of foreign-born residents were themselves permeated by the spirit of readiness to waive their exemptions and voluntarily accepted the call to military service.[132] Thousands of nondeclarant aliens of cobelligerent and even of neutral origin welcomed the opportunity to take up arms against the arch enemy of all; the records of correspondence in this office contain eloquent testimony to this spirit. The figures of alien classification indicate this, and the local boards report explicitly that the number of nondeclarant aliens waiving their exemption was very large (191,491). There came eventually into being a “Foreign Legion,” made up principally of nondeclarant aliens, a large proportion of whom, because of birth within the territorial sovereignty of Austria-Hungary, were technically enemy aliens. Their spirit is well exemplified in a letter written by one such “enemy alien” at a time before the army had awakened to the fact that these men, whatever the technicalities of the prevailing political geography might seem to show, were Allies in spirit, with better cause to fight their titular sovereign than any other sort of American; the author was a Jugo-Slav, who had been offered exemption because of his “Austrian” nationality: ... I received the civil clothes sent from Cleveland, and at the same time a thought occurred to me which never left me--that I should feel ashamed to leave the army and go back to civil life. Indeed, how I love my young, healthy life, how I long to be free again, going my own ways without hearing the command of another. But alas, am I justified to think of my own liberty and happy life, when the moment is here that calls on every young man to give liberty to others? Away, you selfish thoughts. On into the battle: I am a Slovene myself, and my fathers and grandfathers never had an opportunity to fight for liberty. Indeed, they fought for hundreds of years under the command of Hapsburgs to continue slavery and tyranny.... Good by, my beloved young life; I shall not return to my happy home until the day has come when I can proudly see the liberated Jugoslavia in a liberated world. Then I shall return, conscious that I have done my bit. If I shall perish--I am afraid I will--let it be so; the only thing I am sorry about is that I don’t possess hundreds of lives, giving them all for liberty. Dear brother, the suit of clothes you sent me I sold to-day to a man for thirty dollars, who thinks less than I do.