The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-02-16
Salute Remains In Coach As It
 Reaches New Haven
Shanahan and Griffin Among Those Present All Through Connecticut, Yankee Division Veterans Turn Ont at Midnight to Pay Respects to Beloved Commander

in a war of unconceivabIe blood letting, came the salute. The skip per was I'D in front. True his lips were fmmobile, the piercing eyes that had been the window of his soul were yelled in death, the smile that had often dared death to toss an ace of spades in his deck of cards was frozen in formaldehyde, the voice was inarticu1ate, but they knew the skipper was there and they had come to say goodbye as he passed through on the way home.
 They didn't need to see those thin lips move, 1t was not necessary that the eyes which could pick bulge in company front should gleam again, what if the smile had set like 8 sculpture in marble or the lips failed to bark out the commands that send a column moving up to the guns, always to the guns, God, those maddening guns. It was the skipper a..d they understood.
 They had seen him along the Chemin-de-Dames where the I'D went in. They had seen those iron jaws click in baptismal fount of A. E. F. fire. They Knew the familiar and then there was Seicheprey, God those were the days. Man and beast, a ,.avalcade of war, breaking bread with death, waiting for G. l. can that had your number. It all came back to them last night. Aud if some of- the I'D let a tear barrage a face, 1t meant no sign of weakness. Men have cried since the blood red dawn of civilization. Damon has his Pythias even today.
 A side door opened in the special car. There was a wreath that had made the trip down from Bos- ton, a wreath sent by P. c. Vignucl- les unit of Waterbury, the Brass City I'D. It Col Comfort and It Col Shanahln entered the car and came to salute. They touched the wreath. The YD guard of honor that had accompanied "the old man" down from Boston stood at rigid attention. Comfort and Shanahan, command leaders uader Edwards had come to pay their tribute. Outside on the platform 300 I'D men began to mill around for one last look at the coffin in which the skipper slept so peacefully. Sixteen husky New Haven cops had formed a special guard of honor. Comfort and Shan ahan withdrew, the hour was mid night. the shippers ride was to start
 
 There was Jerry Griffin, Walter Be- land, Sgt. Sticks O'Donnell George Burns Harold Parker and some more. They too stepped back. The coach started once more and trailcd out with the staccato of machine gunners in q patch of frog woods. Seemed as if the military was fol- towing to the end.
 At Bridgeport and Norwalk the scene was duplicated. The I'D at these points had waited in the dark of February night for "the old man" to come through. They had waited with him in the dark of other February nights, when the whistles of shells and not iron horses punc- tuated the eerie blackness.
 One salute, and yet another. Flowers, more flowers. Wreaths of peoples, the peoples that once grew alnog Chemin n-de-Dames, the pop pies that covered Flanders with blanket of blood. the peoples the Tanks stuck in their tin hats as they went up to the guns, to the guns, to the guns, always to the guns, those maddening guns. God! What guns.
 This morning they tripled in mus ketry and doubled in brass over an open grave in Arlington. Down be- LOW lOOmeQ the HatlOn CapltOl. UT to one side the soft flowing Potomac. To the back, Fort Meyer. Military commands parked like French 75's when Edwards was hurting to the heights of the Mouse. Life walled to death and death returned it's chill ing echo. Military trappings, mili- tary cadence, military silence for time.
 And then last post. slowly. silently. oh so softly. The skipper had heard it over there when they threw a few clods of earth on his boys gone west. Perhaps he heard it this morning as the casket was slowly lowered and Major General Ransom Edwards, leader of New England's army in the World war, went into the crypt of the ages.
 The old man had come home.