Grand Forks herald. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1916-1955, 1918-07-05
North DakOta's Greatest
Classified Section
CASUALTIES ARE
BEING BALANCED
Number Of Returning Con
valescents Reaching APP !
probable Numbers.

Washington. July 5.-The list Of
casualties from the American army
fighting in France is now being sbal-
anced by returning ~convalescents,
whose numbers in the reconstruction
~centers like Walter Reed hospital here
have reached an appreciable total.
1t is an outstanding fact to all OBJ
servers that an American youth
smashed by a she'll, bomb or hand
grenade is. notwithstanding, exactly
the same kind of an individual he was
before he went in. High spirited, mis-
chievous. all personal loss discounted
and humanity anxious to resume any
dull round of civilian labor, they have
a tendency to regard the carefully
planned hospital school for re.educat-
ing them to usefulness with the same
distaste that healthy youth has for the
training establishments. however de-
sirable he may know them to be-
So a chance visitor to the hospital
expecting to discover a hero is apt to
find a proportion of youths whose
clothes have been taken away from
them to compel them to stay near
their beds. They are likely to be calcu-
lating intelligently their chances to
shirk irksome routine. Whatever .ad-
venture n torture they have lived is
being forgotten while their force and
energy are entirely devoted to the
problem of today.
Yes. they are most healthy and
normal human beings. undepressed
and entirely unworried about any,
thing" explained Major Cotton, one
OF III chiefs of ~orthopedic surgery at
Walter Reed. I'VE find these are not
i'll people. Their mental and physical
vlgor is most astonishing to persons
not familiar with the circumstances.
1t is requiring a continuation Of
patience and persistence to work out
on this material. the f~ar-sighted plans
for teaching, a manned man a new
and productive trade. The massage,
hydrotherapy, n electric treatment
to restore wasted muscle and shrunk-
en- limb are regarded as splendid but
the schools are lodged most gladly.
Still the men are weaving baskets.
and demonstrating intelligent interest
in automobile mechanics, and other
wise submitting to requirements which
are made before they can have liberty
and leisure.
See a German ?" responded Maur-
Ice Becker, once a private in the 10th
infantry. who left his left hand in an
army hospital near Toul last January.
You bet I saw a German. Three Of
oAASSS l. II III, pdITO4l11k
IN front of u post. They got my
buddy with a rife bullet, and I was
cutting loose with my automatic and
hand grenades. We got two, and one
of my own grenades got me-"
Becker explained the suspicion he
had about hand grenades, which is
shared by all soldiers in their first
meetings .yg with that deadly weapon
Yah, they tell you it is timed for
five seconds" he announced s%cornful-
~, and then n goes off in three
seconds, and the next goes off in seven
so Fritz can dump it back on YOU"
They are going to try and teach
Becker to be an automobile expert be-
fore they send him back home to
Mishawaka, IND.
Sergeant Paul Chamberlain. %
years old and with six years military
service behind him, had a new theory.
I'm a military failure" he an
nounced, after 1t was explained that
a shrapnel she'll had taken away q
good section Of one foot. "A fellow
with my experience could have STEP
ped right along. promotion. and all.
bu Fritz picked me of too quick.
20 days in trench at Toul, and were
gong out at dawn on March 9 when
they tagged me. There's a bunch of
scrap iron in these Dutch shells. and
it got me.
Still, maybe I'll be an Instructor
Tor something with the army vet
awhile. Down here, I'm studying poul-
try raising" :"
One soldier, a mimic. broke up the
discussion by ~re-enact}ne he scenes
IN the base hospital wards, when Eng
ilsh visitors demanded necessarily.
MY word, are o really a Yank?"
Thus, the one grimness about Wal
ter Reed hospital, where LOO patients
now are housed is the headquarters
map which often adds MANY red lnas
on a blueprint to show extensions
building, and more yellow lines to
show extensions planned. It does not
extended to the wounded, who are
back from over there" They won't
let 1t while they have a joke left