Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1919-03-14
"CAMP DODGE"
NEWS SERVICE
8Sth Division Has Live News.
paper Enterprise.-Fur-
nisheS News to Home
Papers in u. S.

| In dusty. little French print shop
on the upper Meuse, very late one
night last month. an -smeared Am
erican soldier stuck his head through
the composing room door and baWleC
out Thirty" at the top of his lungs
which is the way American newspaper
| men have of telling the other fellow
| that the copy is all in for the night and
| the preSsman can start his roller going
| just as soon as he wants to.
The ink-smeared soldier was pri
vate George l.. O'Brien of the 352nd
| Infantry. The other fellow was I'ri-
vate TOnQuin Gregory of the 349th
An hour later Private regory
emerged jubilantly from the press
room and went into ecStacies with
Private O'Drien over a very ordinary
appearing newspaper upon which the
ink was still fresh. That particular
paper was. however, one of the most
unusual ever run off by an American
pressman. 1t was the first edition of
the Overseas Camp DOdger, the oldest
newspaper in the National Army and
the first publication ever TO be carried
across the seas by its founders and
survive the havoc of campaigning in
the world war. Furthermore, it was
the first soldier newspaper which ever
successfully Il t G mp t e d publishing
simultaneously on two continents, for
there are now two Camp DOdgers-the
first one founded by the SSth Division
at Camp Dodge in September 1917,
and the Overseas Edition now being
issued by the same organization on the
upper Meuse in France.
Aside from being one of the most
unique in the history of American
newspapering, the story of the Over
seas Camp DOdger has come to be re-
garded by the men Of the SSth as one
of their proudest boasts. Today it not
only is the principal means of main
tanning contact between the soldiers of
the numerous organizations of a great
division, but it has reached out still
farther and is assisting the relatives
and friends of those same soldiers to
keep in touch with the things that these
men are doing over in France. This
latter is being accomplished by means
of a monster news agency inaugurated
by the paper during the middle part OF
January, which now serves more than
thousand newspapers all over the
United States. BY means of articles,
photographs and cable dispatches, this
bureau keeps these papers constantly
informed about what the men from
their particular territory are doing,
stories about the part they have al
ready taken in the fighting now fin
ished, and anything else which those
interested in these. particular soldiers
may ask for
Those men who founded the Camp
Dodger back in the states in 1917 and
later developed it into the leading
camp newspaper in the army, faced
probably the most severe obstacles ever
coped with by a military publication
when they launched the initial issue of
their overseas edition and founded the
news bureau which is now serving the
home states. In the first place, the
divisional training area at GOndre-
court is in the heart OF the upper
Meuse miles away from any printing
plant. and the division itself scattered
over an area of more than % miles. TO