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

Page 55 text:

and in the drizzle we learned that one fuse is rough and red' and another fuse is rougher and redder. Also, we learned that' the best way to handle grenades is to stand about three hundred yards from the point where they are being thrown by hardy soldiers of our brave army, while duds are thrown by vigorous young lieutenants from positions entirely unknown to hurlers of the baseball, the discus and the sixteen-pound hammer. Refreshed by the Christmas holidays, we approached the hrlusketry course with open minds. XVe discovered that in war no self-respecting enemy will ever be seen, for in so doing he breaks the rules: we learned that there is no sense in teaching men anything other than to shoot up the atmosphere and hope that the enemy will be where the bullet falls. Of course, we must always be careful to give the range, for that is where the large number 3 stands on the square frame and if we should give it at a place beyond the io, we would have to stop the war. Then we had care- fully to pick out a church steeple, as that was a reference pointy if there wasn't a church steeple, you sent a note to the enemy and asked him please to change his present place to one where there was a church steeple so we could go on with the war. Wye, of course, would promise him to shut our eyes while he moved so we could have the fun of guessing all over again where he was. Thus having carried out the old adage, 'fCarpenter, know thy toolsf' we, with our intimate knowledge of tenths and a scattering knowledge of the aforementioned tools, approached the shop in which our knowledge was to' be put to the test. The Tactical Section took us in. hand. Intro- duced to the mechanics of order writing, we distinguished ourselves by injecting an element into the course known as fighting the problemfl What was the mere mechanics of order writing to us, so long as we could find loud and vociferous fault with problems as stated? What did we care that the information paragraph came first provided we found in the situation something which we thought did not belong there? We spent months in the solution of thousands of problems and when the time for Brigade Nlaneuvers finally rolled around, we came to under- stand that the course was nearly over. We maneuvered, or thought we did, for three weeks,, and then came the Big Day when we unblushingly accepted our diplomas as a reward for nine. long months of tenth hunting. Again, we had our passports vised, and bidding farewell to the Amer- ican Consul, and his attractive family in Columbus, we took the first train for the dear old United States, the land of summer training camps. In those camps, we purpose to do our level best to disseminate the useful mili- tary knowledge we have gained here, knowing full well, that whatever success may crown our efforts is due not to us, but to the Infantry School. God Bless Her!

Page 54 text:

of Instruction. We were to be taught how to teach! Ah! The antici- pation with which we looked forward to that day. Then seeing on the board before us the cryptic diagrams of how to do it and when and why, we listened and learned not, neither did we speak, but verily I say unto you, no exam like that ever got loose on an unsuspecting mob of tenth hounds before. Told to look over the situation, to estimate it and then to put the results of our estimation into the form of some questions for a prospective class to answer, we bore in mind the teaching given us and said: Now for a chance to soak some other poor fish!'! But the humiliation of hav- ing our own papers handed back and being told to answer our own ques- tions was much too much, and we gave up the ghost. I-Iowever, bearing proudly the more or less honorable scars we had received so far, We marched out to the plain to learn the mysteries of Rifle- marksmanship trigger-squeeze rapid prone position. I-Iow Sandy McNab would have loved it, how he would have gloated over our neglect to put in all the cryptic signs required to fill up all the empty spaces of our target record book! And then the pistol! Ah, to think that some of us should have faced half right when we should have faced half left: to think that some of us should have so far forgotten our left arms as to be1 unconscious of them! What could be more perfect than the untrained position in which the ele- ments of the body not engaged had been forgotten! But We were to be recompensed. For looming large on the horizon was the Arm Blanc-the Bayonet. Can we ever forget how we stood and how our teeth chattered as we learned that we hadi a deadly weapon in our hands, but that we: were always at a disadvantage when we had it? No, we cannot forget! I say it! Not long after this, as we were grouped outside our lecture hall, some wag was telling the story of the countryman who watched the first automobile he had ever seen go rushing past his house about seventy-five miles an hour, and in a few minutes there also went by the motor cycle cop, going about eighty miles an hour, and then the countryman turned to his Wife and said: Gosh, Maw, I didn't know the dummed things had colts ! Just then a familiar voice called, HFALL IN! We went into the Lecture Hall and there on the platform, to lend that atmosphere so necessary to proper methods of instruction, was the colt of a machine gun, the Auto- matic Rifie, and we understood just what that countryman felt! The instructor informed us that this was a great weapon and that it could be dismounted with nothing but absent treatment. But there remained yet other weapons of our trade to be studied. Grenades and explosives. lurked in the dense grass far out over the plain

Page 56 text:

W!! . f f- HA Q fi' kv- !! ' fill Q A Q i:w1,.,L V ,1 5 .5 .1 ,Q-. ' ' P' Nrxj fr 1 X f '-u E 1 fm! , C H X5-Q' rr gif'-f lil f C' 'hxszgrff 2 'J V- lp' .N W x, r Y' . -Q: 9' E '. Eiga .:1a!fQ4 1 N' QM . L 4 A Kwai ' 'Af I xx .lj .7 A J ' ' . ir if ,I gp., K ' ig X, A X To x - v 1: '. N , . - gb? g 'ff .QPQL ., . - -5 on Q :Q ff 152 ' ,gr f- J. r ' 1 -. fri' L, ,il 2 C . g' ff WQQYFT A L I K .' .,. Aibilf-'TQK cjfic YS vf Q A, -,, ff7ff! 7'- , , , ' x QI.: .F A Y:--X - ,Q - ,Hy ,U . ,, 'X-,l 1.57: .,r,,,-1,-,.?'1L - - fzmeffffy'-nf , '- fa 9 f , 195:--1-,Q-'1g4 'A',. A 2.2 : L aj M ,.,., .,, Q - ff1f?- 'ffl - . ,my -L-- - .-'7 ' ' JLS4' , 1, 1 xx . 12:--.,--.-N D ,,4 ' J1..,f,,ffz,:-,f 5 ff- f ' i' 46151 , bl, , ' ' ,..If..- ' J g 'U -:Q -rf '55 -3. .'b--2 - ' L V.-' 2 -. ' -1' :gr - 1 jfs:-, f - S S .- -nz . ...1,,v -K---1