Essex County herald. [volume] (Guildhall, Vt.) 1873-1964, 1919-03-19
EIGHTEEN DAYS
WITHOUT A smoke
"Y" Man Crawled Through Hell
to Carry Cigarettes to the
= Front Line.

Capt ONeil. commanding Company
F, 23rd Infantry. OF the End Division,
is 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
many 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 the 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 the amount Of
appreciation that seems to be with
held for what the Y. M. c. A. has
done overseas.
Il cannot understand" said Capt.
O'Neil. why the Association should
be 30 criticised by some Of
the boys. believe the people at
home need to be informed Of the real
facts in the case, and that when they
are, there will be nothing but praise
for what the ~ has done.
Il remember one secretary who
came up to the front line under FIRE
and brought cigarettes and cakes to
my dusout. I gave him a reprimand
for coming out under fire, but he only
laughed and said: AS you have been
out here eighteen days, thought you
would be wanting smoke about
now He was right; We did want
smoke. A few minutes later a shell
made a direct hit ON the building over
the dugout and blew 1t up, covering
us with all sorts Of debris. kept the
Y. M. c. A. man with me for several
hours after that
Still another time we advanced
beyond the trench line, captured our
objective and organized our position.
Our casualties had been unusually
heavy. The ambulances and stretch
er-bealers had not yet reached u.s. 80
we could not evacuate our wounded
We carried our wounded back of our
of our line about two kilometers into
little hollow and laid them out to
wait for the ambulances. A Y. M. C.
A. man came up and helped to carry
the wounded back. We had hardly
gotten the wounded back when the
boches began Smelling our positions
hard. The secretary kept on bringing
water and bandaging wounds under
fire and finally began to carry the
wounded men to the rear. You can
realize the conditions better when l
tell you that large percentage OF
these wounded were killed in that
hollow by shell fire, and many more
would have gone west if the ~ man
had not helped them out. We on the
line had all we could do to dig in and
hold our positions
when | was back in the hospital
there were four wounded Y. M. c. A.
men there with me. One of those
men, Il fine fellow we'll past middle
age, spent all of his time as soon as
he was able reading to the wounded
and writing letters for them.
1.-THE ~ service with my brigade
was all that anyone could ask, and
more" he concluded THE secretar-
les were brave men and did a great
work, continually exposing them
eelves to shell and machine gun fire
while helping my men. When we
| were in the training area all we had
to do was to ask and the Y. M. G. A.
would 90 the rest. They gave us, in
addition to the canteen, moving pic
ture shows, etc, all sorts of athletic
goods, baseballs, bats, masks, mitts
and gloves enough for four teams
boxing gloves, basket balls, volley