Evening star., 1927-07-17
WAFs UNLUCEST MEN NEVER LOSE CHERRY ASPECT OF LIFE
k THEY SUFFER HOPEFULLY FOR RECOVERY AT WALTER REED
Few of Conflicts Most
Wounded Victims Know
Any Other Home.
Dramatic Tales Shroud
Tragedies That End
in Wrecked Lives.

They left Smith lying on his back
somewhere in the Luncville sector
with his left foot shot 10 pieces, and
he stayed there three days while death
sat at his elbow and grinned at the
gangrene eating away what the Shrap-
mel had left. Then they went out and
got him. gave him the CroiX de Guerre
and sent him home to have the rest
Of his leg chopped off an inch at
time.
Snith-Melbourne J. Smith, private,
first class, 151st Machine Gun Battal-
ion. 42d Division--went across with
the 1st Division. was wounded in the
hip, wrist and right leg in AlsaCe, and
then was transferred TO the machine
gunners. At Luneville he took a ma
chine gun out TO replace one the
Germans had blown up ard he didn't
get hack until they brought him in on
stretcher three days later. looking
much more dead than alive. That
was October II, 1913.
Came to Hospital in 1919.
He came to Walter Reed Hospital
in February, 1919-still on stretcher
and with the exception OF two or
three SIVll Ill pGbHhNANt IAtO NOA'SS
est seven months, he has been there
ever since. Every time the end of
his stump Of a leg breaks down as "A
result of the gangrene he goes back
and has another inch taken off. That
has happened seven or eight times,
but they haven't gotten his nerve yet.
Smith is just one of a dozen or so
steDsons of the war who have taken
up a more or less permanent residence
at Walter Reed. Most of then. have
no other home, many of them haven't
been outside of q hospital since the
war. and all of them call it home.
They are the unluckiest men the
war left alive. but you couldn't call
them pitiful because they are the
cheerfulest men on earth. One or
two of them have been bedridden Tor
wears and several can't get out of
their wheel chairs. Many of them
hobble about on two crutches, some
use one, some have canes and few
have both arms and both legs left.
But none of them is whole.
When YOU ask them about 1t they
will all tell YOU that there is some
thing that won't leave them alone.
There is some heritage of the war
that keeps coming back to bother
them and to make more cutting neces.
sary. Some of them have had as
many operations as they have had
BIRTHDAYS, but nearly every one is
eternally hoping-hoping that the next
will be the last.
Isn't Worried About Leg.
There is Jimmy Hoggin, for in
stance, who has spent more time at
Walter Reed than anybody--ever
1910 (nrnt James
c. Hoggin. Company F, 39th Infantry,
Fourth Division, lost a leg in the
Meuse Argonne September 26, 1918.
Ever since then he has been fighting
to keep the other one. He will have
his fifth bone graft before long, and
If the graft fails the leg must so.
And he isn't worrying about it any
more than he would if it were tooth.
An there is Reds" Reds says he
IS lucky because he just got rid of
his second leg. The first came off
three years ago. and the other one
last Monday. 1t had been bothering
him a lot, and he says he's glad to get
rid of it. He had frozen feet, has been
in 13 hospitals since the war, and is
glad of a chance to get outside. Reds
is Daniel Martfelt, 13Sth Infantry.
Operations are nothing in the lives
of most of these men; they have been
through worse experiences. Many
of them have lost track of the num-
ber Of operations: others keep count
for the fun of it. Corpl. Clyde NJ.
Hopper. Company c.. 16Sth Infantry.
42d Division, kept count of his. He
will have his thirty-eighth next month.
Blocked Path of Shell.
Hopper disputed the right-ofway
with a shell at st. Mihiel September
IA. 1913. Parts of the shell took up
residence in his right arm, his left
leg and his head. He spent several
and came to Walter Reed in June,
1919. He has been there ever since,
off and on-two years out and seven
years in. Every time he leaves the
hospital the shell reasserts itself and
he has to go back and have another
piece taken out. He wears the wreck
OF his left foot in what he calls his
tennis shoe. It looks like a tennis
shoe, but it is the size of a snow
shoe.
Sergt. William Thomas Jeffrey,
Company G, 23d Infantry, Second Di
vision. got the same sort of deal. A
shell burst in his vicinity at scissors
July IS, 1918, broke his leg in two
places and left a lot of pieces in his
ankle. He has had II operations, but
there is only one more piece of steel
in his ankle, and when he gets rid
Of that he will be in pretty good
shape, although he will have to walk
with a stick.
Sergt. Jeffrey knows a lot about
the inside of hospitals. He was in the
base hospital at Vichy, then he went
to Brest and from there back to the
United States. On this side he was
in hospitals at Camp Stewart Va;
camp Dix. n. j.; Railway, n. j.:
Boston, Brooklyn, Camp Devens and
Walter Reed. Three years altogether.
He came back to Walter Reed last
March.
Wounds Not Only Trouble.
1t isn't always the wound that
causes the most trouble. Corp. Lester
A. Boggs, Battery B, 313th Artillery,
thought when they gave him pair
of crutcheS to take the place of a
game leg he was at the end of his
troubles. Boggs was in the Argonne,
vas wounded in the arm October 3,
1918, and in the leg two days later.
He doesn't know yet what hit him; 1t
wasn't 4 shell and he thinks it was a
rock. He came to Walter Reed in
December, 1918, and left a month.
later to be discharged at Camp Meade.
Then, IS months ago, something went
wrong inside of him and he cams
back to Walter Reed. First 1t was
appendicitis, and when he got over
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