US Army Infantry School - Doughboy Yearbook (Fort Benning, GA)

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CLASS HISTORY N a hot and dusty day in September The Advanced Officers Class reported to The Infantry School for duty. ln groups, the travel- stained warriors made their way to the village inn, and after an effort to remove the red dust of upper Georgia from their persons with the yellow dust of the nearby Chattahoochee as it percolated through the pipes of the bath, they one and all entered' into that mad scramble known as getting a house in Columbus. I-low we will look back over the years and think of the historic houses we have inhabited in Columbus. Those historic walls, dewed with age, resounded again, as they had before, to the martial tread of warriors. That same furniture, brought by Oglethorpe when he crossed the Upatoi was still in use, and many, many times has iti paid for itself in gold of the realm by being rented, in meagre quantities, to the officers of the Army. But to those strangers who had arrived for the first time in the fair precincts of Columbus, a still greater surprise awaited. The seat of mili- tary learning was located nine miles from the village, and between the two ran a prehistoric road. Over this washboard, the new arrivals bumped their way to the post, where on its bluff, high above the Upatoi, stood Benning! How we thrilled with the thought of the unwitting tenths which must even then have been concealed in the dust and underbrush, and which we should before long make our very own! Oh, Rapture! Oh, JOY! Reporting, we were laden with the implements of that Tenth Punic War upon which we were about to enter. Steel helmets, rifles, sketching cases, clip boards, compasses flensatic, prismatic, emphatic, erraticl of all known kinds and makes, field glasses, bayonets and last but not least, that badge of, labor yet to come, THE UNIONALL. Proceeding then under this dray load, we were shown to a locker room. Around the walls were nice little spaces just half large enough to hold the stuff we were charged with. This arranged, we reported to be photographed. What an inspiring moment it was! How we looked at the proofs and said to ourselves: Some day this will be a famous picture, for it has me in it! Historians will seeki it out and say: Ah! there he is when he first gave promise of military greatnessfl The preliminaries over, we were conducted to an ancient stable which had served its former owners, as a dairy, where we were initiated into the mysteries of the school. How we tinglecl at the thought of those pioneers who had gone before us! How we secretly gloried in their sacrifices!

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How we felt rise in us a great admiration for those who had lived in the shacks which had served for quarters. lVc had but to look about us to see the palatial sets of quarters note used by the students and the garrison. lVe had but to look across the plain to see Biglerville in all the beauty of its gardens and well paved streets. The first obstacle met with in the course was known as hlilitary Topography. A chief instructor. assisted by a set of junior tormentors, threw at us scales. vertical equivalents, horizontal impostures, diagonal theories and other warped dimensions and unfamiliar phrases. But here was a background, the first' against which we could butt our heads in the search for tenths and our instructors made the most of their opportunities. Those glorious days could not last. A prearranged fate led us on to the use of Instruments and to Motor Transport. Time was flying. VVe were learning our profession. lVe were now the devoted slaves of the elusive tenth. Even then the tenth hounds had their noses to the ground and even then they followed on the trail with that cold-blooded search characteristic of a better cause and purpose. lvhat days we spent finding out whether the cook was a part of the C Tn, or whether he was with the B tk R lVagonl lVhat times we had wrangling among ourselves as to where the Cobbler should be posted! There spread out before us on the plain was the company. First it was an orderly array of nicely uniformed men each with a little sign on him and then a blast of the whistle sent them helter skelterg no nice straight lines, no nice distances, runners here, there and everywhere and no one to tell us the maximum and the minimum distances of the squigip from the scallop. Nor was this all. Hovering over our heads was the ominous Mono- graph. Descending to the lowest level of cruelty, she forced each of us to stand before long suffering mates and with a jumble of Words and figures soothe them into that land of dreams from which the interested representatives of the Inquisition could arouse them only by that kindly phrase Five minutes more, Colonel! No greater sentence Was ever framed except one, and that, Are there any questions ? But not even the menace of the ever-present monologue could sup- press the high spiritsi of the class as We passed, on, to the 37 MM. and its buddy, the light Trench Mortar. Here was the stove pipe- invention of a plumber, made into an instrument of torture, not to those poor souls Who Went to glory on the blast of one' of itsf devilish bombs, but to those speck- oids Who, in order to clean the ammunition for use failed first to open the box! Oh, Ignominyl Oh, Shame, Where is thy box lid? But brighter scenes were before us, for We were to hear of Methods