The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1918-01-03
Gem1an-Russian Peace Negotiations Are Off


Thousands of dollars are being spent
by the men and, as a whole, these
selective conscriptive- men conduct
themselves as gentlemen while In any
city. As result Of these men stat
ing. their ideas on the cards, sold
ier's club has been opened up in Little
Rock. 1t occupies the second floor OF
a building and is 70 feet by 140 feet.
1t has comfortable lounging chairs,
free stationery, tables and facilities
for games. A platform has been
built across the, rear where stunts will
be staged. Sunday afternoon enter
tainments at Little Rock theatres have
been arranged for. We are still un-
der quarantine and would you believe
it, we may remain so indefinitely, as
one or two are taken down with the
measles every week. Any Doctor will
tell you that when hundreds of men
have been exposed, that they would
not guess at the length of confinement.
Each case means Ia more days. May
be the war will be over when we get
out!
We took our first crack at mimic
warfare Friday. Starting out at the
south end of the cantonment our
company shot (point) through an Ar
kansas forest, and an Arkansas woods
is about as filled with underbrush and
bramblebrushes as any we have ever
seen. The first half of the advance
guard was on a high hill of solid rock
and we were looking down grade of
$50 feet. The enemy were supposed
to be in hiding at the left of cotton
ranch building lying peacefully down
in the valley. Down the incline we
went, and when the enemy had started
to annihilate the men constituting the
point, we brought our main body up
on their right flank, completely out
whiting them. We charged them in
deployed formation, our range fire
falling perfectly (?). Not only did
we route the enemy, bue we scared
every bit Of live stock off the place
and the farmers wife hid her fact IN
fright as we charged through her cot
ton patch and pounced on the enemy.
This little experience gave us a
faint insight of what a solder must
go through on march and an attack;
we learned that to live around a bar
rack building and drill was not all a
soldier had to undergo. Many are the
long and tedious marches in store
for him. He must climb steep
hills, wade through creeks and
mud and perhaps at the end take part
in a battle. Sometimes it appears
that we have merely started at it, but
at that we have advanced great deal
during the past month and since en-
tering the service have learned more
about the military than one can mag
inc. Yet it seems to me that a SOL
der ought to. have year at the game
before he is sent to the front, Tor TO
be a good soldier requires as much
gray matter and studying as any 9TH
er vocation. Still, it all depends on
how badly our Allies need men, SO
we must apply ourselves every minute
if we wish to make good as fighters.
Trenches, similar, to those used in
Europe, have ben constructed and are
being constructed about the camp at
places designated by the "higher ups"
A. night prowler wandering along IN a
valley northwest of Camp Pike is ha-
BILE to learn something OF modern
fighting methods in an entirely unex-
pected manner. He might walk into a
barb wire ENHANCEMENT from which
he might, not get out, and then again
he might suddenly find himself at the
bottom of trench imbedded In mud
and water. Some of these trenches
YOU can not see until you are right
upon them because they are camou-
f1ouged with sage brush, briars, leaves
and other vegetation in such way
that they are invisible few feet
away and are respondent with listen
ing posts and communicating trench
es.
I don't believe a jack rabbit could
get through the barb wire entangle-
ments, much less a man with a rifle
with hand grenades coming his way.
Trench education including barb wire
ENGAGEMENT construction, has become
necessary education for the modern
soldier and he gets new tips on it all
every day.
Thursday our company were put to
work clearing a forest for new
series of trenches. If they picked out
this bunch to do a bit at the "clear-
ing" game in the woods and expected
there would be grumble at the hard
ness of the job, they had another
guess coming. A goodly sprinkling
of this company come from Northern
Minnesota and handling an ak is sec
ond nature to them. A wonderful
amount of work was done in one da'
by these "lumberjacks," and guess if
one company could have possibly been
out on two days fatigue at this
work, we sure would have gotten a
second day of it. The only thing that
impeded the progress was the fact
that there fwere a large number of
hickory nut trees in the woods and
every once in while squad woulf
have to be deployed as skirmishers to
bring the nut hunters back to work.
You would be kind of struck with
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