The Chickasha daily express. (Chickasha, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1899-current, 1919-01-14
Trip Across
Was Exciting

Russell, who was with the l1tln
field artillery in France. Mrs. Glay
also received telegram from her
son today stating that he had ar
rived back in the states. The let
ter, which describes his trip across,
follows in part:
"NEVERS, France, No. 22.-Dear
Old Dad: | have been in the S. O..
S. (service of supplies) although l
wanted to get into the fight with
the rest of them. This / could not
do, because | was in the wrong
branch of the service to do any ac-
tual fighting. The medical depart
ment is known as the Suicide club"
for the medical men had to go out
into No Mans Land and admins
ter medical aid to the dying and
wounded without an instrument of
self protection-not even a pistol. 1t
was not that | didn't want to go
that / wasn't up there, for have
tried time and time again to go out
into the more exciting regions and
get into the infantry, but it's all
proved of no avail.
when | ask for a transfer, they
refuse it and say that | am needed
back here in the service in the rear,
so here is where l have been most
Of the time. was two months in
the advance zone with corps Of en-
gineers. When | was with the engi-
neers, we were IS miles from the
trenches, but we could hear the big
guns oceassionaly ON still morn
ing.
81 was the only medical man with
this engineers company and | had
40 men to look after. Believe me,
it was some job. Some one of them
were always getting hurt while load
ing and unloading portable barracks
and erecting a camp. Thus, | was
forced to be on duty all the time,
for there were no doctors in an
area of miles around. | left these
engineers the eleventh day of July
and came down here.
81 was in charge of an infirmary
for awhile after | come back here.
After l served i nthe infirmary, they
placed me in the office of conta-
gious hospital and / have been sta
toned here ever since, doing moth
ing but paper work. l am we'll
pleased with my present location,
and am not pressed with as much
responsibility as I was while with
the engineers.
1--WE were pestered with an cpl
demic of Spanish influenza, but it
has about disappeared now.
"WeI, / will go back now and
relate a few of the incidents that
happened from the time we left the
states. We came aboard the good
ship George Washington at IL a. m,
February 1S, 1918. 1t was some ship
for an Oklahoma boy that never
had seen anything larger than a
ferry boat The ship is 721 feet in
length and it can accommodate
about 10000 passengers. We left
the Hoboken docks sometime in the
night and the following morning
when we awoke, there was nothing
in sight but few other boats that
were acting as our conveys, six
transports and one battleship, the
q. S. S. Huntington.
I'VE were on the high seas four
teen days. On the twenty-second,
while 'on the high seas, we put on
a big Washington's birthday dinner;
it was some dinner something like
a Thanksgiving dinner at home. The
ninth day out from Hoboken har-
Dor an dabout o'clock when we
were all getting ready to take sup
per, a submarine appeared on the
scene, but the Hun sub was soon
put out of commission before it did
any damage. Talk about being just
wee bit scared, | know l was and
don't think there was a man on
this ship that was not excited. If
we would have been torpedoed, it
woul have ben our doom, for the
water was very cold and would have
chilled us in a short time.
eve landed on French soil the
fourth day of March, at Brest, dis
embarked about o'clock in the fat
ernoon. They marched us about
four or five miles out in the coun-
try and we spent the night The
next day and night, we were sta
toned in an old barracks that Napo-
leon used in his time. We slept on
the hard floor with only two blan-
kets. We were also deprived of sup
per that night. We soon recovered
from, that DOstnoned feed and now