Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-11-11
BY A. B. MACDONALD.

| QUIET udy. III OAo ofCAoAAS oAAN " SNA'A
Portable old cap he was hard at work
We'll" he said, Nov I'll tell you
I'm afraid If I went over my war ex-
periences with you and 1t got into tne
paper folks would say was ooaStne
and I don't want to do that"
"They tell me that only two men OF
all the 10000 in the Sd Division gol
congressional medals Of honor ana you
| were one of them" said to him.
He put his ak against the fence. sal
down on a pile of posts, .plucked a
bluegrass stalk to play with ana an
Swered:
"That's so all right"
Six Battle Clasps.
"Then they say that on your victory
medal are six bars or battle-claSps, in
dicating that YOU were in six major
military operations over In France, ano
| that is more than has any other meoal-
| of-honor man living or dead"
"That's so, too" he said and he grim
ned as he chewed the straw. m
nrolIder of that than of anything else
THE American Expeditionary Forces were
in only seven major operations N Cti ),
whole war and was IN six OF Inem:
"Then," / continued, tine Departure nv
of war in washington says thaC on
vour French Croix de Guerre there are
three palms and that each palm repre-
sents three citations for bravery In The
face of the enemy, nine citations m
ali. by the French, alone. is that rlgnG!
eyes that's so. It was pinned on my
tunic by brave old Marshal Petaln, ano
he kissed me on both cheeks as ne 0io
it. I also have the French Meoanie
Militaire, which none but command.
ing general or a buck private can get
to- combat
has one. This medal was designed py
Napoleon Bonaparte."
had been told to ask Barley how
he was cured of stammering and SUI
"TRat was sure a funny thing" he
said. "As a boy I was regular Stue-
terer: couldn't speak for a minute
without notwithstanding. When
was drafted I was IN TeacnerS
was examined by the military SUIT
tered at every question.
Suffered right along until the second
battle of the Marine. There we unoer
went what has been called the most
terrible bombardment in history. was
sent back to the woods to telephone
some important information TO heao-
quarters over an instrument we'd lett
there, tackled to tree.
Shell Stopped Suffering.
at got to it, called and got head
quarters, delivered my message, ana 1ust
very oak tree. A piece of shrapnel tore
the telephone box to smithereens wnlle
INV face was not foot from 1t, ana the
whole upper half of that tree tumbleo
down on me, and pinned me 10 tne
IT wriggled loose, and as reported tc
my major I was surprised that talKeo
straight as any man-no SUFFERING ~
all. I have never suffered since.
was cited for that job, ana got .
French palm for 1t.
IT was cited again In that same bat
tie of the Marine for helping to kidnap
German sergeant.
And then Barley came in his biggest
exploit of all, that with an abandoned
French tank and a discarded German
machine gun. It took me hours to lead
him to this story. A..
at was 1880 o'clock at night, the
9Th of october, when our intelligence
sergeant told me that headquarters was
raising hell about lack OF in1orma a,,itI1
from the front. So her sent me with
three Signal Corps men to set up Z
field telephone as close as could gel
to the German line. The four OF us
were two hours stringing that wire UP
over a low hill and down the other
side. for it was raining hard all the
time. We stumbled, waded, felt our
way. slid into shell holes, crawleo oui
again, tripped over dead men-aH tna'
ground had been fought over, hand,to-
| hand-and at last got to gooo sneL
hole within $50 yards OF the German
line. and there rugged up the telephone
The three Signal Corps men went PACK
and was alone in that hole-Water tc
nv knees-with sticky black mud TO sl'
and lie on.
Couldn't Keep Awake.
"I kept headquarters informed TIL
| O'Clock the next afternoon, ana tLet
nature got the best OF me. cou1on
keep awake. For q while sat, JUS
half conscious, but sleep graouaL!
numbed me. 1 heard voice pack
headquarters say, Hes quit, GCu an an
other said, DO you suppose they've ~
him?'
"At 3 that afternoon, october z. some.
thing woke me; don't know what;
got I'm and looked and saw the Ger
mans getting ready to attack. trleC
to telephone, but while was asleep m.
wire had been cut, probably by a Ger
Behind me, about so yards, was
disabled French tank. 1t STOOD on
little rise, and as I croucheo tneIe .
said to myself, If could only get =
that, tank and crawl inside might D
safe whe nthe German attack swep
about 4 o'clock, for some reason, GU
artillery threw a lot Of smoke pomp
over in my neighborhood. The Ign
breeze drifted the dense black smoK
right down over me, and under cove
of that crawled out Of my hole an
got to the tank.
Germans Had Used Tank.
"The Germans had evidently use
that tank as q fort themselves, Whel
thew held that ground, and in hasth
Abandoning it had left hundreds Q
boxes of machine gun arNmun1tion an
several machine guns Ola the groun
near the tank. When I saw that
thought instantly what a tine fort tina
tank would make for me II couI
mount a machine gun In II. Here wa
enough ammunition to fight battl
with. But whenever a German aban
doned a machine gun he always tool
out its firing block, and these machln
guns were without blocks. The bloc
Is a piece about three inches square
containing the firing device. Witnou
the block a gun is useless.
For this very reason all our intel
Iigence men were instructed to carr
with them, at all times, firing bloc
that would At the baby Maxim machln
gun used by the Germans, and Wer
taught how to use 1t.
/ At had one of those firing blocks, sc
under cover Of the smoke screen,
carried into the tank two machine gun
rand thousands Of rounds of ammunition
in boxes and piled the back end Of tn
tank full and piled more just outsid
where I could reach them.
"A machine1@un barrel IL inclosei