United States Military Academy West Point - Howitzer Yearbook (West Point, NY)

Page 28 text:

PleJxe Ma4 jei44jie U. . . . In August we abandoned drillfield for battlefield and went on maneuvers, realiz- ing for the forty-eighth time since our ar- rival just how underpaid we were. It was a one day trip, even in those times, all the wav up to Pine Camp — part of us traveling by train and the other by truck convoy with a swap fcr the trip back. It was inevitable that we would spend the rest of the year boning the stocks on our new Garands. For four days a continuous prob- lem was fought, with us performing minor tasks in the infantry since — as plebes — we were the GI ' s who established bridge- heads and plodded forward with the sup- port of upperclass artillery, engineers and aircraft. The Reds gained a tactical vic- tory at the battle of Leraysville, but pulled a strategic retreat across the Black River, hotly pursued bv the Blue Forces. As a result, we spent four davs with little sleep and, because of the loss of the food trucks, no food — added to long hours of marching and fighting. Snifter and his )eep solved the food problem, however, and added a poopsheet critique for good measure. Quickly we were mortized and spent a valuable three days with the Fourth Armored Division with experience enhanced a hundredfold and a potent dis- play of firepower with the real stud. The instincts of the soldier and of the cadet What ' s cookin ' ? Whistle, mister. Holdin ' the fort. 24 MMSi ■a

Page 27 text:

r n ' • ■ r Quill will. Royboy ' s boys. and pushed up, sighted luid aimed, faced and flanked, crept and crawled, DT ' d and PD ' d, always fell in but never fell out. Meanwhile, we drew equipment with lines and lates every- where. A dress coat with no maneuver room and with a collar it took two men to hook was built around us. We rubbed the lacquer and half an inch of brass off B-Plates; we shined all that was brass, washed all that was white, jet-oiled all that was black, dusted all that was dusty — and learned to do it in two minutes . . . Personal hygiene was rigorously enforced. We brushed our teeth in cadence, showered by the numbers, learned to present feet for powdering, and to report in a military manner that the foregoing had been accomplished before we could hit the sack. We soon began to count not the days we ' d stuck it out but the days till June.

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iilliljfoi ' ,teili2. ' . hws - ' ' , all the i!»ck coovoy ? l«k. It TO . at. Cops ' n killer clashed frequently on the battlehelJ; when we arose one brisk morning at 0130 to pitch shelter tents to the right, we realized which instinct had won . . . Held under battlefield conditions, these maneuvers made the war abroad more real at home. The line is busy. M -M Take a break ' s ov ■ «is .- ' . i. fi Vi ' a m 25 mr « r