The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1919-02-28
POINTERS ABOUT THE ARMY

Few people know much about the
American army, although the Amer;-
can army has been before the people
very conspicuously for the past eigh-
and have little idea what are the duties
of the various units, and nicknames
are frequently mentioned of which
nothing is known of their origin or
their real meaning In order 70 throw
some light on the subjects Sgt Joseph
A. Arsino. who has had several years
experience in the service and was re-
Gently discharged, has handed in the
following information on the sub
jects:
The name ..Doughboy" applies to in
fantry only The nickname started
some 80 years or more ago. The in
fantry doing all marching on foot
and naturally often in the mud and
comparing the kneading of dough to
make bread by woman with the
kneading of mud to make distance
by the infantry some soldier sprung
the name 'doughboy" and IT stuck.
yellow leg is the name given to
cavalry men during the Indian wars.
The cavalrymen wore blue uniforms
and the non-commissioned officers
uniform had & broad velloy stripe
down the logs of the trousers. This
stripe showed up very plain. Indian
scouts could see this stinguishing
mark 9 great distance and would re-
port to heir chief that the yellow
legs were coming
The mobile army consists of infan-
try, field artillery, cavalry, machine
gun battalion, aviation corps and tank
corps. The duties of the artillery is
to destroy the enery's barbed wire
entanglements, batter down breast
works, destroy forts and protect ad-
vancing infantry with a barrage. In
the late war there has been no special
work for cavalry except to do little
patrol duty and act as infantry. The
machine gun battalion checks the
enemy's advance and play 4 large part
in clearing the way for cur infantry
men when they go over the top. The
infantry Is the branch that goes over
the top. and does oil the hard fight
ing, often getting close enough to the
enemy to do hand to hand fighting.
In short the infantryman takes the
brunt of the battle. The tank corps
advances a little ahead Of the in
fantry Its object is to break down
4 &n
nests and drive as many out of the
front line trenches as possible.
The supporting army consists of
the hospital corps, quartermasters
department. depot brigade, signal
corps. engineers, ordinance depart
ment. and commissary department
The work of the hospital corps is too
well known to take up space describ-
ing. The quartermaster's corps sup
plies the army with clothing, etc. Also
supplies transportation of supplies
from the depot brigade stores to the
regimental supply unit. 1t is the duty
of the depot brigade to see that the
supplies are delivered as close to the
firing line as possible, still to be far
enough away so that a sudden drive
of the enemy can be stopped before
the supplies can be reached. All
communication between the division
headquarters the brigade and regi-
mental headquarters is handled by the
signal corps. Their duties are to run
switchboards wireless and all other
methods of signaling The engineers
| dig trenches build roads, bridges and
| railroads, and do anything that will
aid the artillery to protect the advanc-
ing infantry. All guns, rifles, arms
and ammunition are supplied by the
! ordinance department. The commits
sary department handles the food.
Coast artillery is divided up into
| mining companies, rife companies and
| mortar gun companies, and is known
as coast defense
A regiment consists of $500 men
| There are 12 companies of $50 mer
each. These are called line com
panies In addition to the line com
panies there is a machine gun com
pany and supply company. Tht
duty of the latter is to carry supple.
from quartermaster's stores to eacl
company. In addition to those men
toned there is a headquarter com
pany. The headquarter company il
divided in to six platoons, headquar
I ters, band, signal sappers and bomb