The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-02-13

v blossoms at a wedding-is: ually isn't. Many of the home e they have not measured up. and are sent home because they Ns back home, are as unpleas- nt to leave the big show and go lgles of a colonel pinned on his ID that promotion and stay here with the bunch"
 ed war as soon as can and get back to 'em. Don't you get in my way"
 ''Get-by'' Delegates May Win The day will come when he will ram his head hard against army dis cipline, but this time he won. He got the help he wanted. He got his ties unloaded.
 There are thousands of that sort here, but they are not all undiscip- lined. Some of them are getting dis couraged. Also, as rapidly as Gen. Pershing is discovering the men who discourage men of that sort they are going home. He wants to get the job over, too.
 The officer, Regular or National Guard or reserve, whose ambition is just to "get by" is in danger of a jar every blessed day he lives.
 Of course, the ''get-by'' delegates may win in the end. They are going back home, and because of the cen sorship does not permit the cores pendent to say that "CoL Hokum was fired because his head is full of glue' and because the correspondents say that "Col Hokum is returning to the United States on a special mission the incompetents have all the best
 of it. '
 They can go home and attack the
 organization over here and permit
 the impression to get out that they
 knew too much and were too energet- lie.
 The man who makes good and the
 man who has failed reach the United
 States on an equal footing. It is hard ly a square deal.
 In time the war becomes unreal to the observer.
 At the front one sees tired and quiet men in wet ditches. They an swer his questions respectfully or with lassitude- In the base towns one sees them on the streets or sitting head to head over their pot of thin beer or their wine glasses in some dirty alberge. There is never any real intimacy between them and an observer. Theil interests are quite apart from his in.
 terests. Even when one gets well ac quainted with a soldier the fightins man does not want to recall the ob t scene filth of the trench, the horrol
 of the crawling straw, the days anc 3 nights when the wet clothes freez, t upon the skin. S I know one young French soldie ,. very well. He has fought since Aug g ust, 1914, and the one reminiscenc
 he has volunteered came last night
 When I was in the legion," sai, |, he, "an Algerian one night mixed bee and whisky and brandy and absinth Q and niggerhead rum. Then he dram # a lot of it.''
 The story ended there, rathe I abruptly, as it seemed to me. After
 decent interval I prompted him. e wanted to know what had happene n to the unfortunate Algerian.
 "O,' said he, q saw him crawlin
 over the embankment about midnigh r with his knife in his teeth. Just be l. fore dawn he came back with mi n trailleuse and two German heads" IS Andre and Eve
 At the rear life goes on-somewhs y sadly, perhaps, but "ca marche," g u the French say. It goes on. A A Ones rooms are not so well heate 0 and the railways cars are packed lik
 peach crates and the trans are uneT ,o durable and taxis are not. There l- talk of high prices and the crisis ln tobacco and new taxes. Not much tall us nor violent talk. a- Each seems insulated against a us others by his own little aura of so o row and care. Then, as though dul IT. ing a night of troubled dreams, or d springs broad awake at the call of no terrifying reality, one wakens to wh; ls war isg It comes home.
 The little circle of friends who ha' ne come back from time to time lon pc ny mission" frentic to crowd into a fe
 days memories that shall last the IS for another six months, is sudden g broken into:
 ,lo Andre hasn't heard from Eve f ne weeks now" said George one nigH
 "Her letters have come back stam on ed not found"
 No one knows why he is call ne Five" One of the handsomest bo ne have ever known, with huge, SC
 black eyes and the poseless grace no kitten. Rather a discontented fat ay on the whole.
 ioh Gross Itself Decorated CO., He resented the war, for it bro put his plans and perhaps cost him md future. Even after he got his third he tation he did not wear his cross wh to he came to town. That was "chi-ch led he said-swank, an English boy woI
 have said.
 h." Then at the front one day a sh by demolished the car he was drivi ne, and a bit of it struck his cross a ib- bent it so that it rolled and sparkl