Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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off with some little East side fight-fan who had learned many tricks of the trade from the bright lights of boxdom. Cheered and egged on hy half a hundred rooters, the long-armed individual would tlay around like a wind-mill, never land ing a blow and receiving a dozen quick jabs and uppercuts philosophically, and just waiting his chance to drive one liome. But by the time he got real peeved and started to make it a regular fight, the referee generally called it a draw. When the cold weather passed and sunny South came into its own, ])ascball and outdoor basketball helped us to while away many an idle I ' iOur. A very comical sight that one often sees while going about camp is that of a negro sergeant putting a squad of black recruits from the cotton lands through the “school of the soldiers.” The commander of an army couldn’t look more self-important than that darky non-com: “Come to ‘tenshun’ there, niggah — when Ah say ‘tenshun’ Ah want to hear them eyes come around with a click.” One of the big events in the life of the rookie is the first time he “walks his post in a military manner, keeping always on the alert and observing everything that takes place within sight and hearing;” I mean his first turn at the guard duty. Many a good story is told of that “first trick,” the truth of which I can’t vouch for. This incident I know did happen in a nearby battery. The Officer of the Day was making his rounds of inspection at 2 A. M., one day to see that all the sentries were on the job and was challenged with the regular “Halt! Who is there?” To which he answered: “Officer of the Day.” The sentinel, to whom an “officer of the day” was something new, came back with the demand: “Well what in the mischief are you doing around here this time o’night?” The following story is told of a “dough-hoy” rookie doing his first turn. The top-sergeant had asked him several times during the afternoon, when passing his post, whether he had seen the Commanding Officer. And that night after “Taps” had sounded he halted someone coming iq) 15 EDWARD BEES Military Police

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marched from the train to the receiving station and there our spirits took a drop. Without any regard for friendship closely welded, due to a eommon bond of symj)atliy, since we were all from the same part of “Philly and felt like strangers in a strange place, wo were eomj)letely separated and assigned to ditlerent branches of the service and difterenl units, scattered all over the camp — and so big is this khaki city that many of us have not met since. Not finding fault, understand; conditions required the disposition made of us, hut it rather dampened our ardor for a while. But not for long — new ae([uainlanees were soon found to rei)laee the old; such huge melting pots are these eam])s, moulding lasting friendships out of all classes and types who hapiiened to he thrown together for a few months and who in a short time may he separated and never set eyes on each other again. 1 considered myself very fortunate in again being assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 320th Field Artillery. Once more I found myself thrown in with a real fine crowd of fellows representing over ten states of the Union, from Maine to Mississippi, and I soon felt perfectly at home again. Work was continued, drill, drill, drill, and more drill, as week followed week with fifteen mile hikes every Friday and a division review followed by inspection every Saturday morning, and very rigid inspections these are, both personal and barracks. Everything must be spick and sjian and in place. Any man whose jiersonal appearance is not as it should be or whose equipment is not laid out in an orderly manner and the vicinity of his bunk clean as a new pin is S. O. L. (sure out of luck) — denied his hard earned pass to town that night or some similar punishment. I speak from exjierienee. In the weeks that followed nothing unusual happened. We worked hard and steady and really made wonderful progress, and the more we got used to the life and to one another the more congenial it became. For eight hours a day we were kejit on the go with foot drill, artillery gun drill, signalling, reconnaissance work, etc., and the more we learned of our work the more interesting it became and the more pride we took in our jirogress. Our free time was well spent. Out of our company fund, raised by voluntary contributions, we bought a second-hand ])iano and a phonograj)!! and during the rough winter weather had many a j)leasant little social gathering, either singing or ])ushing back the tables in the mess hall and running a stag dance, d’here were some good shows and entertainments, both local and out- side talent, around the Camj), under the ausi)ices of the Y. M. C. A. or the K. of C. or the Camj) Theatre Company. Boxing, too, was one of our main attractions. Two or three good j)airs were matched together each night after sui)per and “mixed uj)” for the benefit of the crowd. There was ])lenly of comedy here loo, as when a lanky, raw-boned mountaineer from Tennessee would ])air 14

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the road from town and to his challenge, he received the answer “Com- manding Otlieer.” “Well, you ' d hotter sneak in kinda easy, that big top-sergeant ' s been looking tor you all at ternoon.’’ On another occasion one of the guards in our eomi)any challenged three times a dark form ihat he detected gliding by one of the sui)ply buildings and received no answer. Luckily he was an unarmed sentinel or Uncle Sam would have been out a mule that hapi)ened to break loose from the i)icket line. I have walked post a coui)ie of times and one can certainly do a lot of thinking and reviewing the i)ast and searching the future those two hours on in the quite hours of the night. It is practically the only time in the army when a fellow is comi)letely alone with his thoughts. Another experience that I enjoyed very much was when our battalion of the 320th Regimental went to the artillery gun range to get actual firing jiractice. We learned a good deal there and enjoyed the two weeks in the s([uad tents, although the weather was exceptionally cold for this jiart of the country and we were not prepared or equipped for it. But it was something novel and we knocked a dandy time out of it. Each night we were free to go to a nearby quaint old Southern town, where we could sit around the big stove in the court room of the town hall and smoke and swap yarns with the village gossips and celebrities — or, chaperoned by the sheriff or one of his aides, take in a regular Southern “nigger dance. Another welcome addition to our army life was when the horses arrived (for ours was a mounted company). But when we had taken a few trials at them and found they weren ' t like the horses you pay ten cents to ride around the track on at an amusement park, we were not agreed that they were quite so welcome. There was hardly a one of us who didn’t “hit the ground” a few times in learning to c(|uitate and there was absolutely not one who didn’t find it much more inconvenient and uncomfortable to sit down than heretofore. You see we were nearly all “rookies when it came to horsemanship and j our first time on a shy Ijorse, bareback, you feel much like a i)ehhlc on a barrel. One fellow composed a very original ditty to the music of “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the hoys arc marching. “Bump, bump, bump, I got a blister. And my back is far from being well ; And my shoulders they are lame, Kaiser Wilhelm is to blame; All we get is thirty dollars. Ain’t it ?” Well, that is about all the do])c I can give you on army life now. Father, You see I am not in with the old crowd any more — being on ])rohation for the shoulder bars and here in the training school we arc asked to he like the old si)hinx. Enough that I am in excellent health and s])irits and find the work here most interesting. We are ])utting in about ten hours a day with drills, classes, lectures, ins])ections, study 16