Connecticut western news., 1919-04-03
EIGHTEEN ]: DAYS
 WITHOUT A SMOKE:
"" Man Crawled Through Hell to Garry Cigarettes 70 t4lo
 Front Line.

SdpI V 1NClI, AJN A%~l'N@A
 ', 23rd Infantry. of tho End Division. E on his way back to San Antonio, where he was stationed before the war. While in Boston visiting his sister at Winthrop Highlands, he explained nany of the difficulties and risks at tached to modern war. but the one thing he stood like statue on was how he came to wear tEe Croix de Guerre. That, he said, was won for him by his men who never failed to Carry out the tasks assigned to them.
 Amongst other live topics beyond his understanding is tho amount of appreciation that seems to be with held for what the Y. M. c. A. has done overseas.
 "I cannot understand" said Capt. O'Neil, "why the Association should be so criticized hy some of the boys. bei:~vo tho poople at home need to be iaso~med Of the real facts in the case. "nd that when they are, there will be nothing but praise for what the " has done.
 "I remember cne secretary who came up to the front line under fire and brought cigarettes and cakes to my dugout. I gave him q rcpTimand for coming out under fro, but he only laughed and said: As you have been out here eighteen days, I thought you would be wanting smoke about now He was ,.irht: we did want smoke. A few minutes later shcll made direct lit on tho building over the dugout ard blew it up. covering us with all so~tq Cf debris. kept tho Y. M. c. A. r'Gn with me for several hours after tl:ct.
 Still apct"or t:n"~ wo advanced tcyond tho frcnch line. captured our objective ar1 0~rani2od our position Our casuAiit'e7 'o1 been unusually heavy. Tho orhuIances and stretch er-bealtrs h2d net yet reached us, 50 we could ret cya-uate our wounded We carried 0u" wounded back of our of our linz about two kiloneters into little hollow and laid them out to wait for thc anlbul2nces. A Y. M. C. A. man C9ma up and helped to caTrr | the wou~Icd h"ck. We had hardly gotten tho wounded back whfn the boches began aheliing our positions hard. Tho secretary kept on bringing water and bandaging wounds under 1 fire ar,! finally began to carry the wounded men to the rear. You can l realize tho conditions better when I | tell you that a large percentage Of | these wounded were killed in that hollow by shell fire, and many mor+ would nave gone vest if the " man had not helped them out We on the | liro had all we could do to dig in and hold our positions "
 'fNhcn was ba elk in the hospital there were four wounded Y. M c. A. 1 mon there with me. One of those men, inc fellow we'll past middle aec, spoct all of his time, as soon as he was able reading to the wounded cI, writing letters for them.
 The " service with my brigade w@G ell that anyone could ask, and iu2o"e," he concluded. "The secretar- ;oH' were hrave men and did grea ~o"k, continually. exposing them l ;C'"aT to shell and machine gun fire %.j.o helping my men. When we i were in the training area all we had ! -H do was to ask and the Y. M. c. A.
 "ogld do the rest. They gave us, ia 1 "CGit;on to the canteen, moving pic ! tuTc shows. etc. all sorts of athletic
 sccds, baseballs, bats, masks, mitts
 "2d gloves enough for four teams
 l0Xing gloves, basket balls, volleT 1 balls and other things"