El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1918-02-26

with equanimity, recogizing that long
| service in the ranks, with experience
in many camps and on at least two
war services. is probably as valuable
as the five weeks Of training they
themselves have had.
Only One Kick-SIOw Mails.
Aside from the weather. which is
nobody's fault, there has been really
only one general kick here. That is
over the mail service, which has been
utterly inadequate. II the folks at
home keep getting letters from their
boys over here saying the boys have
had no news, il is the fault Of the mail
service.
Yet when one investigates the mail
service, he finds all hands are work
ing their heads on to stand up under
the staggering load. The mail for the
army is tremendous.
1t Is shipped from an American port
in closed sacks, addressed to men by
their organizations. and is supposed
to come straight through.
Mail Gets Mixed.
But the sorting is not always done
with accuracy in New York. The mail
clerks there apparently do not under
stand that letters addressed TO the
Umpty-third infantry do not go to
the same place at all as those ad-
dressed to the Umpty-third engineers
or the Umpty-third ammunition train.
SO infantry letters get into ammuni-
ton train sacks. and go gaiIy of to a
forsaken village in France which has
no cross-country connections through
which to forward it to the proper
destination.
The only thing that can be done is
70 send those letters on the back track
to headquarters. where there is
dead-letter office. There they can be
rerouted. But in the meanwhile two
or three weeks may have elapsed.
In the regiments, again, the sorting
IS done by men who often have no ex-
perience in mail work. They may be
detailed quite at random: very often
they work under great difficulty. One
squad has been sorting package mail
out in the courtyard for lack Of office
space
Careless Handling.
Out Of conditions like this grow
complaints. Many men have not yet
received their Christmas packages.
There have been eases, filled with
packages, received here in bad con-
dition- Packages have been broken
open in transit, and often had been
quite obviously and Systematically
robbed. Sometimes the packages had
vanished, and the contents were loose
in the cases
There have even turned up packages
on which the original addresses had
been marked out, and entirely new
addresses had been written on the
other side. A package which started
to John Smith, B company, Skizzty-
second infantry, now turns I'D for
Eddie Jones, K company, Hingty fifth.
The only guess as TO what happened
is that somebody on the line thought
II a pity that a friend Of his shouldn't
have such a good-looking and hefty
bundle, and kindly arranged that he
should
Trying To Clear II Up.
Details from here have been sent !
mail The sergeants have had to 4
fight their way. have had to steal |
mail cars, and sometimes have even /
had TO do switching in the yards, I
pushing the cars by hand. Luckily |
French freight cars are small and I
light, ana easily moved.
Even with all these trials. however, |
everybody is at present well supplied |
with all sorts Of stuff except cigarets. /
Machine Beginning To Move.
The most difficult thing to remem- |
Der is that everything here is just /
starting American troops are arriy- !
ing, and only beginning has been !
made Of arrivals.
To the men who have been here for |
LL4cc OF LOlL uOnLuSs ana 10 Lue |
people whose boys left home last sum
ner, it seems as If they must be |
settled and in the routine of life /
again. But the thing is so IN
lmaginably tremendous that it can't /
start all at once The machine is only /
beginning to move now. with much 4
groaning and failure Of parts, and /
much shifting OF gears.
By that is meant general Of two 1
stars rank never knows how long his /
personnel is going to stay put He
picks a chief Of staff; bingoi The /
shief Of staff is taken away from him /
for line Of communications. He 1
picks another; whingoi The chief of
stan goes TO the command OF a regi- 1
nent- He names couple Of personal
aids coughoi The more experienced /
1f them gets the influenza. spends a
month in q Paris hospital, and is or
1ered to the south Of France. appar-
sntly for the rest of the spring. In
eidentally, the next one gets a bar
added to his shoulder straps. so the |
II winds Of France are usually tenn
1ered for somebody.
chief surgeon barely gets his
work assigned when he has 10 lose
his right-hand man-needed some
where else. A chief quartermaster
Ines up his stream Of supplies, and
begins 70 look round for a comfort
axle billet with q "cheminee"; bloeyi
On goes his head
All these things, of course, are the