Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-06-16
Soldiers Back from
 Trenches, Find U. $. Lethargic
"Half the United States Doesn't Know That We Are at War;" is Plaint of Wounded Lads
 Invalided Home.

gun out to the front line, and the road was a heavily travelled one That meant that they had to move with the greatest caution, and by night, when- ever possible. The most dangerous position to be passed was a cross road which had been a favorite tar get for German gunfire. The night be- fore they went through it it had been heavily shelled, and the night after it was shelled again. But the enemy was sluggish on the evening when they hauled out the big cannon. A soaking rain had fallen and the road was full of mud and very badly cut up by wheel tracks. They had barely slipped past the four corners when --plunk!-their big gun toppled over on it's side and then sank up to it's ears in mud. It took a good three hours to drag it out, and, as it weigh. ed nearly 5 tons, it was a back-break- ing job. But the wonder of it was that during the entire time not a single shell fell near them.
 Within the next "A hours they brought the gun to the assigned place and set it up.
 Tough Luck.
 And then" said Sedgt. P-, "we had our first piece of rotten luck. We had cleaned her all up, and she was oiled and polished and bright as a new quarter. And then, all of sud- den, there comes a shell slap into a pool of mud yards away. It didn't do a thing to our gun but cover it all up with mud so you culdn't hardly toll hot +n go to work and clean it all up again.
 The battery was out at this post for 15 days. They exchanged daily compliments with Fritz, and for ev- cry shell that came whizzing over from the German line, they sent back three. It was reported from the ob- servation dugout that whenever the Americans opened fire the Germans ducked for cover. Up to the 18th day there was not a casualty in the American battery
 On their last day, just before they were to be relieved, high explosive shell came sailing over the ploughed up land and dropped right among them.
 "There was two killed and five of us wounded" Sergt. P- explained, "I got mine in the leg, and it was a l nasty one. But I was treated fine. 1 Within few hours after got hurt I was on the operating table. The 1 wound was infected bad, just like all the shell wound are. They flushed it out with Dakin's solution, and they kept that up until there wasn't any infection left. The queer thing about that stuff. is tha it never hurts a bit when it touches wounded flesh. It's I only when it gets on sound flesh that you can feel it.
 "They kept me over there until was we'll enough to send home, and now I'm here, waiting while they fit me with new leg. Some day I ex. pect I'll be walking around almost as good as if I had regular foot. '' At this moment mess call sounded and the men filed out on the porch to "chow." Some walked upright, few were on crutches. and one walked with limp. Among them discerned my first informant, walking cheer fully along swinging his stump of an arm. As I looked at him. felt and
 understood what he had meant by saying that half of, the American peo ple do not know we are are at war l Nothing but firstlhand contact with the casualties will ever make us ap ] preciate the actual horror of war
 Nothing else will impress on us the
 vital need of fighting this to. a. finish
 so that another war will be an i'm
 possibility.