The Washington times., 1934-12-18
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Mickey Goes Up and +After 10 Long Months,
First Shell Changes The Last Shell Got
Him For the Better Him On the Road Home
BY BILL CoRUM

NEW YORK, Dec. 18.-This
is a continuation of a story in
yesterdays column which at
tempts to show that even for
the warrior born there is no
profit in war.
Few want war for fun. Few
fight for fun. Private Michael
j. Perkins, the worlds worst
best soldier, fought for fun in
the last war, and this is what
1t got him.
Mickey Perkins still was a
guardhouse prisoner when the
Twenty-sixth Division took a
hitch in it's belt and moved up
toward scissors and the Che
min-des Danes as the last year
of the war began.
At the head of the Yankee
division went Maj. Gen. Clar-
ence E. Edwards, the "Old
Man." the West Pointer de luxe,
the tilt of his two-starred over
seas cap perfect, his faultless
riding boots still on dress
parade.
At its foot came Private Per
kins, the hopeless soldier. the
horrible example, his wrapped
puttees slapping at the grey
slime of the French roads
with every step, his inevitable
double chew of tobacco in either
cheek, cognac in his canteen
and murder in his heart. How
he hated that guardhouse that
some wag in his company had
nicknamed Perkins Patio! On
the afternoon of February S, the
guns of Battery A, 101st Field
Artillery, took position on the
line alongside the batteries of
General Maud Huy's 18th
French Corps. At 3:45 o'clock
one of the American 75s barked
and Spat a darting tongue of
flame into a cold, misty rain,
and the 26th Division and Pri-
vate Michael j. Perkins were at
war with Germany.
Mickey Finds Job
As that first IS shrieked over
the cheerless shell hole in which
he squatted with his rifle and
can of bully beef something
else must have come over Mickey
Perkins. From that first night
in the front lines, he was a
changed man. He had found a
Job. This was going to be a
fight. He could understand
that. It made sense with him.
It clicked.
Perhaps the fact that a tooth
brush miraculously appeared
alongside the trench knife he
insisted on carrying in his put
tees, will illustrate the meta
morphosis as we'll as anything
could.
He got a minor citation or
two and they even tried making
him a corporal. But that didn't
work. Private Perkins was
strictly a one-man soldier and
as nearly as any other Ameri-
cannot even excluding Ser
geant Yorke, or Rickenbacker
or Frank Luke-he came close
to making it a one-man war.
So 1918 crashed on toward
one of the most momentous
moments of history, II o'clock
of November II, and it was late
October now and hell was loose
along the Meuse. On the right
bank of the river, the Twenty
sixth formed the pivot of Per.
shing's army as it waded
through machine gun bullets on
the Argonne to swing east
toward the Briey coal fields,
the Metz railroad, and the end
Of Imperial Germany.
How Hero Was Made
Nobody will ever succeed in
telling in words what Mickey
Perkins did on the last day Of
his life. Perhaps we had best
rely on the formal and factual
report of his company COM
mander to be found in the ar
chives of the War Department,
as follows:
II hereby certify that on
October ~, 1918, I commanded
Company d, 1O1st Infantry,
during the attack on the Bel
leau BOis. That on the after
noon of that date just before
the taking of the final Objec-
tive, the left flank of the COM
pany which was the first pla-
toOn, found its progress halted