Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1918-08-22
WOUNDED SOLDIERS
STILL HAVE SPIRIT
Those Being Trained For Other
Duties Much Like School
Boys They Are.

AsSN VI G06unAlloS
from the American army fighting in
France Is 20 being balanced BY re-
turning convaleacents, whose numbers
in h reconstruction centers like Wal
ter Reed hospital here have reached
an appreciable total.
1t IL an outstanding fact to all OBJ
servers that an American youth
smashed by a shell. bomb or hand gre
made ia. Notwithstanding. exactly the
same 1 of an individual he was be-
fore he ent in. High spirited. mis-
chievous. all personal loss discounted,
n humanity anxious to resume n
u round of civilian labor, they have
a tendency to regard the carefully
planned hospital school for re-educat-
Ing them to usefulness with the same
distaste that healthy youth has for the
training establishments, however de-
sir1bls he may know them to be.
30 a chance visitor to the hospital
expecting to discover a hero is apt to
find a proportion Of youths whose
them to compel them to stay near their
beds: They r likely to be calculating
t4telltGently their chances to shirk irk-
Some routine. Whatever adventure and
torture they have lived is being for
gotten while their force and energy are
entirely devoted to the problem Of to-
day.
Yes. they are most healthy and nor
MAJ human beings. undepressed and
entirely unworried about anything"
explained Major Cotton. one of the
chiefs Of orthopedic surgery at Walter
Reed. W. find these are not ill people.
Ther mental and physical vigor 10
astonishing to persons not ia
m1liar with h circumstance"
II is requiring a continuation Of
military discipline and considerable
patience and persistence to work out
on this material the far sighted plans
tor teaching q MANNED man q new and
productive trade. The massage, hydro
therapy and electric treatment to re-
are regarded as splendid, but the
schools are lodged most gladly. Still
IN men are weaving baskets and DEM
o~netr3dng intelligent interest in auto
mobile mechanics and otherwise sub
MATING to requirements which are
mad before they can have liberty and
leisure.
See a German7" responded Maurice
seeker once q private in the Sixteenth
infantry. who left his left hand in an
army hospital near Toul last January.
you bet l saw q German. Three Of
enem. all at once. n night, patrolling
IN front of u post. They got my
cutting loose With my automatic and
hand srsnades. We got two, and one
OF my grenades got mo-"
Becker explained the suspicion he
had about hand grenades, which is
shared by all soldiers in their first
meetings with that deadly weapon.
sYah, they tell you 1t is timed for
eand then one goes Off in three seconds,
and the next goes Off in seven so Frtntx
can dump it back to you"
They are going to try and teach
Becker to be an automobile expert be-
fore they send him back home to Mish-
Rwnkn. Ind.
: Sergt. Paul Chamberlain. "a years old
and with six years military service be-
hind him, had a new theory.
I'm q military failure" he an
nounced. after 1t was explained tina a
shrapnel shell had taken away a good
section Of N DOT. "a fellow with my
experience could have stepped right
picked me off too quick. Nothing he
roic about it, we'd been in 20 days in
trnch at Toul, and were going out at
dawn on March 8 when they tagged
me. There's a bunch of scrap iron in
those Dutch shells. and 1t got me.
something with the army yet awhile.
Down here. I'm studying poultry rails
ing"
One soldier, a mimic, broke up the
discussion by re-enacting the scenes in
the a g. hospital wards, when English
visitors demanded incessantly. My
word. are you really a Yank?"
Thus. the n grimness about Walter
Reed hospital. where LOO patients now
are housed is the headquarters map
which often adds many red lines on a
blueprint to show extensions building,
and more yellow ines to show extern
sions planned. 1t does not extend to
the wounded who are ack from lover
there"
They won't lot 1t while they have .
joke left