Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1916-08-03

are EeuulEeu U an ARMY III IHS uelu.
Each truck carried four or five troopers in olive drab
squatted insecurely ON top of the load.
The road was uneven, it was full Of ruts, but the
auto truck train glided along at the rate of from eight
to ten miles an hour. The vehicles kept a perfect
alignment. The troopers swore softly but earnestly
as the trucks jolted.
Even as the army mule watched, the sweating, swear
ing truck train disappeared into a cloud of dust be-
yond the border line. Then the mule tilted back his
detected head and gave vent to a secret sorrow in one
far-reaching vocal effort. AS though knocking his
grief, the horns of the auto trucks footed back de-
risively in the distance.
The grief of that army mule was the grief of Othel-
10 with his occupation gone. He sunk behind the Soto
cactus and subsidized into painful meditation. He had
just seen his finish.
He realized at that moment that the army mule
would never again hold a high place among the fac.
tors which win battles. He realized that practical
poets would no longer sing Of the virtues which the
army mule could display upon great emergencies. He
was already obsolete, down and out.
Even the mule skinner" with the picturesque vo
cabulary and the hard words, had abandoned him.
The mule skinner was now driving one of those
auto trucks, and was addressing it with strained
p~oliteness when he spoke to it at all.
1t was all wrong. By the martyred mule Of
Matanzas, of which the army bards sang during the
Sp~anish-American war days, it was all wrong!
There was no use to pull against the auto truck.
He had tried it when they hitched him to the rear
of one. He decided to drag the thing back over the
desert. But, instead, he was relentlessly dragged
on his launches for a mile, and he gave it up.
The Columbus expedition has demonstrated that
in the matter Of army transportation 1.-THE mule is
dead, long live the auto truck!" 1t had already
been demonstrated at the battle of the Marine,
when motor vehicles checked the German advance
and saved France.
But our war department moves with excessive
Il 5oI;bora+sa II nIr,np tapnnin11clv IN its faith in
the mule until the first auto truck train went
galumphing into Mexico, making three times the
distance that q mule could make over roads which
no motor-driven vehicle could be expected to
travel.
The consequence was q rush order for auto
trucks and drivers. The auto trucks are standing
up wonderfully well. They pillow through the alkai
dust up to the hubs, they jolt over the rocky
places, they founder through the sandy wastes that
grind the bearings, and they puff through the
mountain passes. They go anywhere the mule Will
go, and they get there in better time.
While the long trail from Columbus to Nami-
uuipa is lined with the %carcasses Of mules and
horses, the auto trucks go rumbLng on in their
work Of keeping the field army supplied with food
and ammunition. They perform new mlracies
upon every new emergency.
There are several hundred auto trucks at the
army base at Columbus. On a pinch those trucks
could move an entire brigade In one day twice as
far as all the horses and mules in the world could
move It. This is true, despite the fact that many
of the trucks are badly racked because OF bad
driving.
Not only does the successful test of the auto
truck spell the passing of the mule train. 1t
also means the passing of cavalry, the most pic
turesoue branch Of the service. Even cavalry OIL
GERS in the punitive expedition will admit that
!: three or four auto trucks will get a company OF In
fantry twice as far on a forced march as the pest
mounted troop Of cavalry could travei.
Cavalry charges are rare in these days OF rapid
fire rifles and machine guns. The horses are used
only to get the men to the front, where they OPP
crate as infantry. When the gasoline-fed mounts
| can get them there so much faster than the horses,
! IT begins to look bad for the cavalry horse.
The United States army of the near future will
] travel extensively on gasoline. There will be few
! more heart-breaking infantry hikes, and there win
be few more wild cavalry rides, leaving In their
wake dead and dying horses. Even field artillery
can be carried by the auto trucks.
All of this should have been realized before. One
of the lasting benefits Of the punitive expedition
will be the undermining of the military transpor-
tation branch. The auto truck has passed the
stern test.
For the present the auto truck trains with the
army in Mexico are not working under any definite
system. The organization of the truck train Of the
United States army has not been decided upon.
Neither has the type of truck to be used in the
organization been decided upon. Captains and
! blieutenants are busy taking notes as to net mile
age and gasoline requirements; also, as to stability
md reliability Of the different makes of trucks IN
the service.
The drivers are a mixed lot. Some are regular