Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1918-06-20
RONTON. MO-, THURSDAY, JUN 20, 1918.

~ M" yc"s wheu tnoy pay "lH4le,
n they don't play "Msrching
Through Georgia" rcuch. Lssstwise
haven't heard it played since I've
been here. Sea many farms Of cotton
down here. 1t is too early for the
fields of snowy white and they look
like a back yard full of weeds.
Lookout Mountain, where the
"battle above the clouds" was fought,
is right near here. The guide tells me
you can see eve states from the top
of it. 1t was so foggy the day l was
up there you couldn't see the base of
the mountain, much less six or seven
states lying around loose. II he told
some Of those lady tourists they could
see Arcadia Valley from there they'd
believe him. The Chickamauga park
we are camped in was q civil war
battle ground. They have monuments
and old n spread around every
place, and they won't let the govern
ment n of them, so they
build the barracks in between them
and it sort of muses. things up gener-
ally. Every time you open a door
you see a cannon pointing down your
throat. Right outside of my quarters
is a monument where some general
was killed. / feel like | was in a
cemetery
There were SO many things we had
to get accustomed to when we came
here. 1t takes about a month to learn
them. Bugle calls were a particular
bother. None of the recruits knew
one bugle call from another except
perhaps "mess CALL" finally got a
list of the calls and the time for each
of them, and whenever a bugle call
would sound I'd look at my list and
remark, "There goes mail call" or
"That's officers CALL" to the envy of
the other boys, who thought must be
a wizard on bugle calls. There are
other things you have to learn by in
; stinct, such as "stuker,n who is a
man who cleans up your room: "a
w. G.. L." which means absent with
out leave; "k. p" which means
kitchen police or men who do the work
in the kitchen, fatigue" as its name
implies, means a working party of
some kind; "over the hills" means to
desert.
, A man in the company came up to
me the other day and said he had
been "%bobtailed" when he vas doing
a "hitcil" i'll the Fifth Calvery. "Bob-
tailedn 9 to get a dishohorable
discharge and q "hitch' is an enlist
. ment or term Of service.
When they filled our regiment up
|, to war strength they took quite q few
from the National Army. They are
supposed to be "the flower of Ameri'
can MANHOOD" but the bunch we got
. were mostly bricklayers, barkeeps,
:. and "wops.' The muster roll sounds
like a Polish dictionary.
. They're all good soldiers except a
: few who suddenly developed icon
y scientious scruples" against fighting
That's the most discouraging thing il
:, the army. If a man only tries to
!. learn, they don't care how hopeless a
' specimen he is to start with. Give
them one nan who has a healthy de-
sire to run u bayonet through The
first Hun he meets and he's worth {
dozen who would rather stay at home
and guard the Mississippi Vale.
= against a possible German invasion
That's the II thing l like the regulai
army men for. They may not COM
- from the "best families Of America,
!" but when it comes to actual iightinl
- they're right there. II anyone ha
any doubt about what the American
Army is going to do or how the war !
= going to come out let him 60 out som
day and watch an old time regula
. army sergeant take us over tn
y bayonet assault course. God hav'
mercy on the trench raiders who eve
:. got tangled up with this bunch!
-. Hoping this will give you a line o
my impressions as a soldier and wit
best wishes, l am
Sincerely yours,
PRIVATE ALVIN G. EFFrNGER,
Co. NJ, 61st Infantry, Camp Forres
Ga. Chattanooga, Tenn.