Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1919-03-27

bereft parents who sailed away from
America and vanished as completely as
though the ship that bore them had drop
ped over the edge of a fiat world into a
bottomless abyss. Thousands of other
bereft parents there'are, to be sure, but
some inherited Distinguished Service
Crosses or Medals of Honor from their
brave sons, and some have messages of
coincidence from commanding officers or
their sons "buddies" and some have
'last words" to treasure or souvenirs to
keep.
The parents of the missing men have
nothing. Nothing but their memories.
In some cases somebody is to blame.
In other cases nobody is to blame. Hun
dreds of the missing men in the American
Expeditionary Forces will never be any
thing else but missing men. 1t may be-
come reasonably certain that they were
killed but there never may be any proof
of it. At the first roll call after their
outfit was relieved from the line they
were simply not present and have never
been seen since. Maybe somebody saw
his pal knocked over by big one but
couldn't tell whether he was wounded or
dead and had no time to stop and find
out. Maybe shell got direct hit on a
couple of lads and tore them into unrec-
ognizable bits hardly worth burying.
Maybe the chaplain going about his work
of putting away the dead, found some
whose dog-tags were torn away and
whose clothes were empty of identifying
marks.
All those things happened. The Ports
of Missing Men" in France are full of
graves whose crosses bear the word in
black paint "Unknown They are. full
too, of crosses that bear nothing at ALL
neither word nor dogtag and never will.
Every day Col. Record, of the ll5th
Infantry and Col. Sweeney receive let
tiers from people who have sons in the
ll5th and 3l3th Infantry regiments; some
of these letters threaten the Colonies
with bitter things for their "laXity, y
"carelessness, their ''nhuman neglect
in failing togive satisfactory information
of these sons. "You don t seem t. know
anything about the men in your own reg
iments," some of the letters say "You
tell me my son is missing; and yesterday
| got letter from him. He is in hos
pital."
Heavens knows, it is not the fault of
either of the Coonels. They are fight
ing Colonels, both of them, and they
commanded regiments that fought in the
hardest battles of the war Their jobs
were to keep their fighting forces driv-
ing ahead into the Germans; it was some
body else's job to take care OF the wound
ed. They loved their regiments and the
men in them enough to go out of their
way to try to find some trace of those
who failed to return when the fighting
was over To the extent that they were
successful in their searches, they have
helped to comfort the people at home.
What comfort the people at home with
missing sons still lack may be charged
up in some measure to the same system
that made necessary the publication Of
casualty lists for many days after the
fighting stopped Either the system was
Inefficient or it was handled inethcientiy.
Either hospitals failed toreport accurate
or the reports were not accurately record
ed. Even at this late date regimental
records in France are being revised with
reports just now arriving that Private
So-and-so, who was wounded on such
andsuch front is at this or that hos
pital. Thus the recorded data that Pri-
vate So-and-so was missing in action
is changed to wounded in action, and
a new notice is sent to the family, which
enters forthwith upon new era of doubt
and uncertainty.
The Port of Missing Men" is wide
and deep and many will be the ghost
ships that find it. And many there will ,
be that never reach port at all.
Some of the men of the 3l3th regiment
recorded as missing in action" may be |.
n the thousands OF graves marked "Un- |
inown' or not marked at all. Some may
De lost in "a hospital in France and may
urn up later. Some may have turned !
Up already.
The seventeen men of the 18th already .
eported missing were, regimenta head
quarters has every reason to believe, !
Tiled in action either in the Asace or the |
Grand Montague sectors.