Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-05-05
Miseellaasuus 8eadins,
ARMY LIFE ON BORDER.
Very Different as Compared With 1
Few Years Back.

Few Years Back.
There are few old timers" in the
army now as "old-timers" were con-
sidered few years ago. There are
very few enlisted men in the army now
who were there before the Spanish
American war, and a man with a SER
geant's stripes who has been in the
service ten years or more Is rarity
these days, whereas a few years ago
few men wore the stripes of corporal
with a 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 con-
stabulary, a number have received
commissions In the regular army, and
in many other ways they have disap-
peared from the ranks of the fighting
force. The army of today is made up
of new men, but the discipline Is good.
and the personnel Is undoubtedly
higher than it ever was. Clean-cut
young men, athletic looking and intel
ligent, make up the majority of the
fighting strength Of the army. The
grizzled sergeant is a misnomer; the
sergeant Of today is a young man-in
the majority Of cases-and he comes
nearer emulating the type Of men who
wear the shoulder straps than the
type that formerly wore the chevrons
and had to have company clerk make
out his papers. The old sergeant held
his position, as Elbert 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
great body 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-Galveston, San Antonio, and
Diego-but the men who are guarding
the border have none of them; they
have every hardship, yet are accepting
1t all without a grumble. A trip along
the border from tent to tent reveals
the soldiers clad in their khaki trou-
sers, duck leggings, woolen olive drab
shirts, and campaign hats, lounging
about in the sand, caressing a stray
Mexican cur. cleaning a rifle, burnish-
ging the sand out of roll of blankets
preparatory to a short rest, with re-
signed smiles on their faces and new
er a frown-not even for the doctor
who visits them as often as he can get
around and advises them about 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 be-
tween the low tufts of Drowned yege-
tation; or the back yard of a Mexican
home with five dogs, a goat, and cow
in the forefront and half dozen dir
ty 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 a squadron of funny Mex
lean soldiers gallop past in quest Of
or comes hurrying back to
the nearest town to be locked up in
barracks for the night after a brush
with band of rebels in the foothills,
for all the time there Is a chance Of
real war;" and that is what the SOL
dier has enlisted for.-El Paso Her
aid.