The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-08-27
Continued from Page one.)

tihcial. Only the facts are real and
important for US. And good boots
are scarce.
Once it was different. When we
went TO the district commandment to
enlists, we were class of twenty
young men, many of whom had
proudly shaved for Inc first time be-
fore going to the barracks.
We had no definite plans for our
future. Our thoughts of a career
and occupation we're as yet of too
impractical a character 10 furnish
any scheme Of life. We were still
cramned full Of vague ideas which
gave TO life, and to the war also
an ideal and almost romantic char
acter.
We were trained in the army for
ten weeks and in this time more
profoundly influenced than by ten
years at school. We learned that
a bright button is weightier than
four volumes of Schopenhauer.
At first astonished, then embit-
tered, and finally Indifferent, we rec
ognized that what matters is not the
mind, but the boot brush, not intel
ligence but the system, not freedom
but drill. We became soldiers with
eagerness and enthusiasm, but they
have done everything TO knock that
ouJ Of lis.
After three weeks 1t was no longer
incomprehensible to us that a
braided postman should have more
authority over us than had for
nlerly our parents, our teachers. and
The whole gamut of culture from
Plato to Goethe.
With our young, awakened eyes
We saw that the classical concep-
ton of the Fatherland held by our
teachers resolved itself here into a
remuneration Of personality such as
one would not ask of the meanest
servant-salutes, springing to at
tention, parade-m marches, presenting
arms, right wheel. left wheel, click"
ing the heels, insults and thou
sand pettifogging details.
We had fancied our task would be
different only to find We were to
be trained Is heroism as though we
we're circus ponies. But We soon ac-
customed ourselves to it. We learned
in fact that some part of these
things was necessary, but the rest
merely show. Soldiers have a fine
nose for such distinctions.
BY threes and fours our class was
scattered over the platoons amongst
Tristan fishermen, peasants, and la
borers with whom we soon made
friends: Kropp. Muller, Kemmerich
and I went to No. platoon under
Corporal HimmelstosS.
He had the reputation of being
the strictest disciplinarian in the
camp, and was proud OF it. He
was a small understood fellow with
a foxy, waxed mustache, who had
seen twelve years service and was
in civil life a postman.
He had a special dislike for Kropp,
Tiaden, Westhus, and me, because
he sensed a quiet defiance.
I have remade his bed fourteen
times in one morning. Each time
he had some fault to find and
pulled it to pieces. I have kneaded
a pair of prehistoric boots that were
as hard as iron for twenty hours
with intervals of course-untn they
became as soft as butter and not
even Himmelstoss could find any
thing more to do to them; under
his orders I have scrubbed out the
corporals' mess with a toothbrush
Kropp and I were given the JOB
of clearing the barrack square OF
snow with a hand broom and
dust pan, and we would have gone
ON till we were frozen had not
lieutenant accidentally appeared
who sent us of, and hauled HIM
melstoss over the Goals.
But the only result Of this was