Lincoln High School - Lincolnian Yearbook (Tacoma, WA)

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THE LINCOLNIAN 25 aid of the American forces the tide had been checked and that we had fallen heir to the task of starting it back again. Well l remember the night before we first went into action-there could be no mistaking such preparation. It was to be our great experiment and we hoped that we would not fail. Up to this time l had been a man of my only little reflection. For months thought had been live and to take my chances, face death with a laugh: if l came through all well and good, if l went west it could not be helped and l would not be alone. But as l lay there in the darkness and quietude of the night my carefully erected stoicism of feeling and immunity to thought began to melt and give way before the onrush of new emotions. -My mind reached out and in an instant spanned the five thousand miles between myself and home. l thought of my mother and the care- free smile died on my lips. There are those who invest their time and efforts, their very lives in the making of money or in some similar pursuit until it becomes all that they care for: but my mother had devoted and consecrated herself to the raising of her boys. Her willingness and desire to sacrifice her own pleasures and comforts for their benefit was due to the fact that she lived not for herself but for them and to see them happy and well supplied with every advant- age possible. If some cause should arise which would call the men who live to gather riches to give up their lives' accumulation for a principle, most of them would fail to come for- ward to the sacrifice and if forced would surely raise a sorry din: but my mother had given what she had spent her life in carefully molding and more. Many people can see what they have worked for vanish and stoop and build it up with worn- out tools but she had not only given her life's produce but her ideal: and when the ideal is gone life is a blank. l looked also at my father, he who had never been so eternally youthful, so cheerful, and full of hopes. But he was growing old and in his hair there were streaks of silver and as l looked his shoulders seemed to stoop a trifle more, his gray head bowed while all the careful plans and specu- lations which we were to finish on my return faded dim, and l choked and shut my eyes on a little house- hold shrouded in the terrible shadow of gloom. As l lay there with the far-off din of the high explosives rolling to my feverish ear it seemed to me that l was a coward going laughing into battle and possibly to an easeful death while my old parents suffered many times the pangs of death and stood alone, weakened, to fight the great battles of life that should have been mine. Then my mind's eye turned in up- on myself and l began to wonder if l were really what I had believed my- self to be. Was l ready to face death? Had l lived long enough in this life to be ready to leave it now? Was l as carefree and fearless as l had tried to make myself believe? Then my thought drifted to religion and l wondered what my religion really was. As I have said l had been a man of little contemplation and tho during all my life l had been trained along the orthodox path it had been merely a form with me and had had no deep effect, as is true, l believe, in many more cases than we usually suspect. Suddenly the question presented itself: How do I know but that this thumb-wom re- ligion of ours may be but a form of revised mythology, for while we are trained to believe one, yet stripped of its halo of undoubtability one seems as absurd as the other. How was I

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24 THE LINCOLNIAN l us that the slacgsefri 'gwere choosing the harder route of-the two. ' So the days passed'and the time drew near for our entrainment for the east. On the morning of our de- parture l was in the most sober mood that l had ever up to that time ex- perienced. l felt very sad when l told my mother goodby: not only my own sorrow opprossed me, but the suffering which l knew she felt then and would feel later though she tried bravely not to let me know. For my father, also, while he said but little, l knew that it was a great trial for him. As the train pulled out from the station, my native town, a great lump rose in my throat and an invisible weight seemed to be slowly crushing in my chest. indeed the first day on the crowded train was one of the most gloomy parts of my army experience. Most of us were busy with our thoughts and did not care to listen to those feel like talking. But soon the mist of to clear away and with ful buoyance of youth to our former optimism few who did gloom began all the hope- we returned and thought- lessness, sang songs, told yarns, and thumbed a rather dog-eared deck of cards to speed the dragging hours on their way. We arrived at Camp Mills a very weary, dirty, but tran- quilly cheerful lot of men after nearly a week in the passing. Circumstances were somewhat diflierent in the cos- mopolitan city of war, but everything bustled and moved with such a vim that we could not but feel the vi- tality of the great city which lay so near us. l managed to make several excursions about New York and was greatly impressed by its magnitude. its splender, and r-ish: its great ca- pacity for doing things. Here, too, the feeling among most of the men was to see some life be- fore we left, and every opportunity found us in' the swing of the city to have one more purple passage while chances were good. We were not destined to remain long at Camp Mills, however, and the end of a few weeks found us ready to pass down the gang plank to transport for over-seas. Of that trip l can say but little: leaving New York did not have a similar effect to our departure from home. .We were anxious to be on our way and see what lay before us. Then, too, it was the first ocean trip for many and the novelty of the experience relieved the situation of the monotany of our long train trip. We made a brief stay in England though we managed to see but very little of the country and soon we found ourselves in the realm of the Royal Lilies. Here it was rather damp and seemed to put in a good share of the time raining, but as no one there seemed to bother about the rain we set our faces and tried to make the best of it. lt was grim business here, no child's play to be sureg we drilled steadily during our brief stay of six weeks, often under the supervision of French officers. But what gave us the greatest feeling of reality was the rumbling of the far-off, growling thunder away to the east and north: the voice of the great war calling out to us to prepare for a terrible tomorrow. We were moved again, this time into a rear-guard station among the reserves. We were seeing signs of war now and beginning to realize the vast scale on which battles were be- ing fought. From the few papers that we managed to lay hands on and from talking with the other Lnen we learned that the enemy had, since spring, been driving into the heart of France with all the desperation of a dying hope of chance. We also learned that by means of the timely

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26 THE. LINCOLNIAN to know but that some other man's religion, the Hindoo's belief in rein- carnation or any other creed might be the truth and my own involuntarily accepted ideas far astray? Might not all these religious doctrines be merely man-made confessions of his own weakness and a resignation to all philosophy by attributing the infinite, inconceivable universe to be the work of a god to relieve his own mind of the task of accounting for its exist- ance? That night, as l lay there with my face to the stars staring into the dark- ness alone with my thoughts, l made the change from the thoughtless boy into a philosopher. Not that l wish to boast: l merely wish to say that l became a man, for all men are phi- losophers. Then the great questions, doubts, and fears that come to all men poured in upon me and l strove long to answer and to understand that which may only be answered by long experience and thought and possibly then only by resignation. My brain worked with feverish clearness and speed and my mind leaped up follow- ing new paths, climbing heights where it had never explored before, ever plunging in and bringing forth from the inner apartments of my brain the plunder of all former reading with amazing accuracy. But again and again it was baffled as if facing the unanswerable, again leaping up in a wild frenzy to know, until this Mind seemed to possess my whole person, gripping me with a great strength, amazing me by its violence of desire like a great chained monster beating at its fetters and prison walls until they rocked in its madness to free its self and know the truth. This was a new experience for me and there was something wonderful about it that held me spellbound like a child with a new plaything. l had never had time to realize before in my rush for a good time and seeing life that there was within myself the most marvelous creation in the Universe, the mind of a man, for it is really a part of the Great Supreme, whatever that may be. As these new thoughts crowded fast on each other through my mind they filled me with a sudden wild exhilaration and my spirit seemed to rise the prison of darkness and seek divine joy among the clouds of light. l wanted to live-live to think, to create everything all anew for myself and find what l really was and what l thought. l wanted to learn more and to bring the spoils of great read- ing to feed this strong new appetite. Then l knew that l was afraid. Life had a new luster for me now and l wanted to live to remember this great war that l might some day tell of it to my children. Even in my former doze l had realized that the world was beginning to move in a new orbit: that the great things were happening now, greater and swifter events would come soon. The whole world was seething, struggling for a new birth, a renaissance and even in this day of slaughter: Bliss was it that dawn to be alive. But to be young was Heaven. Was it to be thus awakened and then to die? The thought of the trenches and the approaching struggle with grim death chilled me and make me shudder. There was none of the glory of war here: it was just numb- ing, terrible realityg dying like corn- ered rats in a hole. l have heard of and even talked to me who claim not to be afraid in battle, who, according to their story, like to fight. l know of but two pos- sibilities where human beings may be unafraid in modern warfare: one is lacking the necessary intelligence to realize the conditionsg the other, being so weary of life that death, even in