The Detroit times. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1903-1920, 1911-12-25
THREE HUNDRED BRAVE
AMERICANS FIGHTING
LOSING BATTLE FOR LIFE
But They Laugh and Struggle oil
Against Implacable Foe,
tuberculosis.
BELONG TO U. S. ARMY.
Government Conducts Sanato-
rum at Old Fort Bayard
To Care For Victims.
BY w. G. SHEPHERD.

SILVER CITY, New Mexico, Dec. 20.
High, rough mountains where Geron-
imo and his near-devil Indians used TO
hide.
AT their feet. Fort Bayard, where
lived the daredevil soldiers who
wiped Geronimos forces off the earth.
This was a third OF a century ago.
Today the fort contains about 800 Am.
erican soldier boys, besieged by the
one enemy they can't overcome-tu-
berculosis.
This Is Uncle Sans sanitarium for
tubercular soldiers 5000 feet up in
the mountains and 10 miles from the
nearest town.
AT 1890 and 3 o'clock every day you
hear the bugler blow boots and sad
dies, but here II means that every
soldier must go to his cot and rest one
and half hours.
When the colors are dipped at even.
ing, just as they used to be dipped In
the old Indian days. 1t is not soldier,
but hospital attendant who per-
forms that ceremony.
You see Col. George E. Bushnell
walking about the fort, lone member
OF long line OF brave commanders
at old Fort Bayard. But he is a phys
iclan, one OF the greatest diagnos-
ticians OF tuberculosis in the United
States. Here's fighting man whose
battlefield is the human body.
AS the colonel shows you about the
fine hospital buildings and the glass
house, where the soldiers play at bill
lizards and board games, he says:
When they get here they live long
er than they would in some city, be-
cause they are well fed and well cared
for. They have no worries. They rest
on their cots most Of the time. We
try to make them comfortable and hap
by. because when they became soldiers.
Uncle Sam agreed to care for them
and protect them TO the last. They all
sleep outdoors and they call me Col.
Cold Storage"
You pass the dead house You see
one caisson-Yistors call ii an am
rlunition wagon. But this caisson
never carries ammunition. 1t carries
soldier boys out to sleep In the fam
Gus Fort Bayard cemetery, alongside
OF other soldiers who were overthrow
in the Indian days. And always. out
III the cemetery there are two or
three graves yawning for the next
soldier boys
Rut, TO the soldiers at Fort Bay
ard. II doesn't seem TO appear grue-
some. They go, laughing, to bed, to
eat, to billiards.
Uncle Sam is all smiles and kind
ness here" says Chaplain c. e. Bate
man. The soldiers are a happy lot
Most soldiers are fatalists. They think
they will die when their time comes
All they have TO do is to eat and
sleep and be comfortable. Some Of
them gain weight and live many
years But still we've laid away a lot
of them, in the cemetery, back there.
The nearer the victim comes TO the
end the more hopeful he becomes.
Now and then one OF them calls me
over to his cot and says, Chaplain.
wish you'd have the post tailor fix
up my clothes. I'm feeling so much
better that I guess I'll go. home TO
the folks tomorrow | don't tell him
he's wrong, but the chances are that
by morning he'll be in eternity, but
Iif | told him the truth his fever would
only rise ana hasten the end
Look at me-" said one soldier. fat
and hearty. i've been here two years.
As long as stay here | weigh about
100 pounds. When | go to my home
in st. Louis | drop down to $780, and
III didn't hurry back here I'd die.
This mountain air and sleeping out
doors, with plenty of fresh milk and
eggs keeps me as healthy as anybody.
Quite lot of us die. But we get used
to il. The fellows even joke about it,
sometimes-about who'll go next. oh,
we amt down-hearted and gruesome
hare Ware soldiers -