Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1918-01-30
NEWS NOTES FROM
CAMP DODGE
Interesting Information From the
Place Where Our Boys
Are TrdInIng

OlVlS1Ou f1oaQQuaFteI6, camp 1OuSos
Iowa, Jan. 2S-Discipline is tighten.
ing at Camp Dodge as the time nears
for the arrival of the last increment
of General Plummer's division. =.
And with it has come general
speeding up of the training program
that is whipping the men thru their
daily PAGES at faster rate than COM
handing officers anticipated when the
Sixteen weeks intensive training"
program was announced.
Until this week, soldiers were given
two half holidays, one on Wednesday
afternoon and the other on Saturday.
A divisional order from Brig. Gen.
Getty, acting commander, abolished
the Wednesday holiday. At the same
time regulations went out cutting
passes and furloughs to the bone. The
private who gets off during drill hours
must have an urgent justification. Ev-
cry officer has been ordered to be on
duty in full military uniform at rev.
ellie each morning, Z am. Hereto
fore, many of the officers have lived
in the city and reached the canton
ment at more leisure hours.
Officers in higher commands see in
the tightening of the screws a fore
| cast OF what is coming when the full
$4,000 men fill the barracks of Dodge
and the full division starts the war
game. The Tightening now is to make
it a part of the order of things so that
the new men will accept it as a mat
| ter of course. But in the offing higher
officers see different deeper meaning.
The 88th Division will start for
France the day General Plummer tells
| Washington the men have enough
drill and are sufficiently seasoned to
so. The call from Europe is for man
power, not next summer, but at the
earliest hour the men are ready for the
front line. And officers here know
how the war department is preparing
to answer it. There is more abou,
speeding up than the Camp Dodge
censors will permit to be printed now
There are many things going on at
Camp Dodge these days that the gen
eral public does not know. Everything
the public is entitled to know-every
thing that will not be Of aid to the
enemy-is passed by the censors
Newspapers find no fault with the cen
sorship. But the details of training
the use of gas and gas masks, bombs
and grenades-they are not passed
No one is permitted to publish wha,
the veteran Frencha and British officers
are telling the new American soldiers
No one but the soldiers are permitted
to hear them.
There are some things published be
cause they cannot be concealed OF
kept within the borders of the military
reservation. One of them is the artil
lery practice. The battery of three
inch guns boom daily out on the slope
of the rifle range as the instruction
goes on. The gray painted guns ant
caissons stand in position relative tt
the artillery point on the battlefield
and hurl the high explosive screamert
two miles away
A puff of white smoke tells the
mark. Sometimes when the wind il
right, the report comes back. And il
you're back Of the guns and close by
you'll see the men working away will
heavy mittens and the new shapeless
army caps, sewing shrapnel that costs
$18 a shot in the cornfields, trying
ever to learn how to put the next sho
a few yards closer to the objective.
Rife practice also goes on despite
the weather. The soldiers now use
the new Enfield rifles, the standard
lied gun developed by the war depart
ment since war was declared. There's
a rear peep sight on it that makes i
much better than the old gun for &C
curacy's sake: The men of the Three
Hundred and Fiftieth Infantry have
begun rapid firing practice.
i Students working for commission,
in the officers training camp are get
ting it harder than either contingent
at Fort Smelling. Even their Sunday:
are not their own now. The new
schedule compels them to attend
school from until pm. On weel