The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-11-18

some day right soon now when some the Red Cross. fund, just give that ra
 in quick and be glad you have the ch And then turn your thoughts back l a couple of years and recall that about this time and earlier, thousands ana thousands of boys were being moved like chessmen across and around and
 all over the United States, the paWns
 in the great game of war into which we had been plunged Boys who sticking around home; sticking around the old home town; going to
 the picture shows; to church, may ] be; to the Saturday night dances,
 little dreaming of what was in store
 for them and who suddenly found
 themselves snatched away from home i and all it's attendant comforts ana
 pitchforked into new life, so en- 1 tirely different from what they had
 always lived that the change made | them fairly dizzy with astonishment 1 Days over in the concentration camp to which they had been assign
 ed, slammed into some organization
 onto a troop train and away for some.
 distant camp, no one knowing Tor
 sure where they were going. Old timer, maybe some time in your life you may have thought you was home
 sick, but let me tell you that you i don't know the meaning of home sickness until you have spent about
 the fourth Or fifth day in a day
 
 ed over you, under you and around
 you. And please remember that T there was another boy in the seat,
 maybe with your boy, it might have been. There was no place for your feet, your knees and scarcely for your arms. About once in every 24 hours you had chance to stretch your legs just little bit. That old timer, to a man, who is just picked up and loaded down with his equip ment, taken from a life of ease and l activity, comes as near constituting what that much quoted general call
 ed-you know what he said. And if you doubt it, just hunt up any Con- necticut National Guardsman who made the trip to Nogales, Ariz., in June, 1916, in day coaches magnan- ! imously provided by the New Haven line for the trip, and get his opinion of what constitutes the real article of what Sherman called it.
 It was in just such a rain and just as cold and windy on the morning of \ October 27, 1917, that the railroad a yards at Washington, D. C., were filled with troop trains. To be exact, dur k ing the time that my own particular trains packed with soldiers standing in the yards. On my own train two q soldiers up ahead in the hospital car died of; an.-ailment which then was a baffling the best skill obtainable and S several more were complaining of a sore ears. There is where it started 1 and it didn't take long to lay a husky | soldier out for keeps. Forty-eight I hours of cold rain had taken the per a all out of our outfit and the two deaths had completed: the job. About T that time I began to have mighty @ well-defined idea of what homesick % ness meant.
 A long train pulled in by my owr and stopped, and immediately the s usual and regular line of greeting' and questioning started. They tolt l a from Camp Devens.
 "Got anything to eat?" called 8 youngster from the Devens crowd. 4 ''Surest thing you know,'' we called X back. We had our own cook car M and grub was plenty. I reckon i A the mothers of some of those boy
 had been present and heard the com plimentary CD remarks made con 8 corning Camp Devens, the officers il 2 charge of that train and the whol A situation in general she would prob H complished much by sending he g Willie to Sunday School Those boy Fl were on a troop train in charge of of E ficers who should have been at hom doing k. D. in their home town res Fl taurantS. The train was headed fo E Texas and there wasn't one cook ca M attached.
 E They had not received one cup c @ coffee from the time they left Dev # ems and were being issued col M .corned Willy for sandwiches An
 then I held up my mess cup fror E which the steam was still rising frol @ ,he coffee in it. "Gocd graciou E alive," called 8 chap to me, ''wher M did you get that coffee?''
 sa Just hold your horses, old boy, S I told him. "You are going to ge M yours pretty quick The Washine ton, D. C., Red Cross women are put E ing out coffee and sandwiches.' Fl Again the next morning at 1 o'cloc E we rolled into Philadelphia and, be
 
 H band of. women, the Red Cross won1 H en lined up at that unearthly hour ( M the morning and again We receive A a. nice package of good cheer. Ther hear some soldier say 'tPledmonts, '' E and an orange, chewing gum and tw E postal cards already stamped so W E would be sure to write back to tn M folks at home.
 H The men who served in the Rair @ bow and the Sunset divisions, the AZ M and 41st, will never forget those earl H tents, rain and mud. The dirt1e. H hole in all the United States. this sid H of Phoenix, Ariz., or Ell Paso, Texa # No bath houses up and when they di M get them up, they were just a pla @ form above which protruded a wate W pipe with a few sprays. I have see G men so desperate for a, bath that the E stood in the open air on the ice-co1 H cred platform and take a shower. An a the chow wasn't always the best, an H there was about every discouragin 8 feature ina aginable tackled on to | @ at the same Camp Mills. The ba, E ibers in Hampstead barred us frol E their bathrooms and gloom was tf E prevalent thing. Brother, did yo M find that blessed haven in Hem pstea E known as Red Cross House, run | s the Nassau county Red Cross women @ There the wives and daughters of Ga. M den City's elite took their reguls E turn in the kitchen on k. D., and | E me tell you they worked and we at H Fried ham and eggs, and hot roll E and good tea and coffee and il M cream. We can confess now how V stole sugsr ron rom 1aes one company sl'a kltcl A want to say that there is a ho 8 of heroes who have never been y K mentioned in general orders or cit A tions or anything else; only by u M fellows up at the front who used @ "rawhide'' us with that pretty so E for you guys stuff that they lik, A to pass out to .4the service of suppl, E crowd. Sure it was pretty. soft al