The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-04-15
Army Life on the Border.

| There are few "old timers in the
army now as "old timers were consid-
/ cred a few years ago. There are very
few enlisted men in the army now who
were there before the Spanish-Ameri-
can war, and a man with a sergeant's
stripes who has been in the service ten
years or more is a rarity these days,
whereas few years ago few men wore
the stripes of a corporal with length
of service under five or six years. The
'old timers have gone out; many of
them have retired on two-thirds pay,
many have gone into civilian positions
in the Philippines, some of the best of
them have been made officers in the
Philippine constabulary, a number
have received commissions in the
regular army. and in many other ways
they have disappeared from the ranks
| of the fighting force. The army of to-
! day is made of up new men, but the
| discipline is good, and the personnel is
undoubtedly higher than it ever was.
Clean-cut young men, athletic looking
and intelligent, make up the majority
of the fighting strength of the army
| THE grIzzled sergeant" is a misnomer;
the sergeant of today is young man
lin the majority of cases-and he
comes nearer emulating the type of
men who wear shoulder straps than the
! type that formerly wore tn chevrons
and had to have company clerk
make out his papers. The old sergeant
| n0lQ MS pOSlIlOn, as ElDeFI HUBBARD
says, because he could whip any man
| in the company; the new sergeant be-
cause of capacity as a commander.
The services these border guardians
are performing are harder than they
would be called upon to perform in
case of actual warfare, for in a war a
great pody of men moves at one time,
equipped with field hospitals, great
trains of quartermaster and commits
sary supplies, batteries of field bake
| ovens and other conveniences. The
| troops have these at the concentration
camps San Antonio and
| San Dieeo-but the men who are
guarding the border have none of
them; they have every hardship, yet
are accepting it all without a grumble.
A trip along the border from tent to
| tent reveals the soldiers clad in their
khaki trousers, duck leggings, wooden
olive. drab shirts and campaign hats,
| lounging about in the sand, caressing a
stray Mexican cur. cleaning a rifle,
Furnishing a bayonet, reading a paper
or digging the sand out of a roll of
blankets preparatory to "a short rest,
with resigned smiles on their faces
and never a frOwn-not even for the
doctor who visits them as often as he
can get around and advises them how
to keep well, and is sometimes finicky
about the sanitation or rather the lack
of it With no fairer view than of a
broad expanse of sagebrush or cacti
with the glistening white sand between
the low tufts of Drowned vegetation;
or the back yard of a Mexican home
with five dogs, goat and a COW in the
forefront and half dozen dirty
urchins playing about a woman lazily
drying her hair in the sun. the soldiers
put in their time. They have already
been at it several weeks. Their eyes
sparkle and the blood runs quicker
when the firing is heard across the line
and squadron of funny Mexican SOL
diers gallops past in quest of insur
rectos or comes hurrying back to the
nearest town to be locked up in bar
racks for the night after a brush with
a band of rebels in the foothills, for
all the time there is chance of real
war" and that is what the soldier has
enlisted for.-EI Paso Herald.