The herald., 1918-06-13


Largely Myth.
Judging by results here at the front,
a man is better off with plain army
cooking than with the elaborate menus
of Delmonico's and the Ritz to choose
from.
The officers messes are slightly more
varied than those of the enlisted men,
but both are very GOOD, and there is
| no complaint an q along the line.
The men have ,ugar and butter
and all the CONT. ats usually found
on Il chop house table, writes Don Mar
| tin in the New York Herald.
Here is what had the other day at
an officers mess very close to the
front: Beef stew, mashed potatoes,
lettuce salad, coffee, cake, canned
peaches. The next day, beans of very
| good quality, generously soaked in a
tomato sauce, took the place of the
beef stew, and rice pudding was SUBJ
| stituted for canned peaches.
No one will get thin on fare like
that, and it may be authoritatively
| stated that the men are by no means
| growing emaciated. They are the
healthiest looking lot of men to be
seen anywhere. Thin ones are filling
! out and fat ones are thinning out.
| Cheeks which once were inclined to be
| chalky now are tanned. HollOws I'M
| der cheek bones have pulled out.
Men Like the Life.
The men with whom I have talked
like the life although it is by no means
an easy one. So long as food condi-
| lions remain good there will be no
/ grumbling from the men. The army
has been here long enough now to fur
nish added proof of the truth of Napo-
Icons statement that an army fights
ION It's stomach"
At luncheon at an officers casual
mess recently l saw men well known
at the leading hotels in New York,
Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. One
| of them is considerable of an epicure
and his messmates say he was inclin-
ed at first to balk at the rough army
| food. 1t is all changed now. He eats
| beef stew with the same relish he once
| ate terrapin, and beans he enjoys as
thoroughly as he once enjoyed a de-
licious curry. asked him If he would
| like to sit down with Fifth avenue
menu to order from and, pausing in
the midst of a course Of turnips and
mashed potatoes, he said:
"This will do for me, thank you"
OF course, the matter Of appetite
has great deal to do with it. No one
of all the enlisted men and officers
lacks an appetite. When dinner time
| comes at noon the men are there on the
| spot, and they are right on the job
| again at six o'clock in the evening. 1t
might also be said that they are always
hungry. One officer, a major, who is a
very notable figure in the life of a
middle Western city, leaned back from
his dinner the other day, lighted
cigar and said:
'This life here is doing more for me
than any vacation I ever had"
And he looked II. He said he suf-
fered from insomnia and loss Of ap-
| petite at times, but that he has had
neither since he got out in the open
with the army. There are good many
men of great wealth in the various
American divisions and they are shar-
ing equally with all, Of course. In an
officers barracks, about five miles from
the front, saw a man from Philadel-
phia who was accustomed to every
kind of luxury. Here he was sharing
tiny room with another man who,
the Philadelphia man said, snores ire
mendously.
"But I don't mind 1t. I don't mind
anything now when I lie down for a
nights Sleep"
Can Sleep Anywhere.
The boys In the ranks have already
had far more soldering than they ever
got in the training camps at home.
They have tramped on roads for many
hours or days at time, have slept in
motor trucks, on crowded trains, have
been billeted in barns and In barracks,
have slept in fields and by the roadside.
Yet there is very little illness and the
men look In the pink of condition.
They eat regularly and plentifully, and
the only complaint have heard from
them is that they would prefer fight
to constant training.
The romance Of war as pictured BY
the boyish mind is said by the soldiers
to be largely a myth. For instance, in
a muddy roadway saw brawny pri-
vate pacing up and down in a driving
rain, rifle in position, guarding some
thing (even he didn't know what it
was) which was piled up nearby. He
had been on guard for ten hours. I
asked him how he liked 1t and he
made no reply. The sentries don't
talk to any one.
In camp on. the American sector
I saw a soldier scrubbing mud off har-
nesses.
'This isn't quite my idea of what
war was going to be-" he said, "but
| with touch of genuine American
| humOr) / have found in INV short hut