The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1945-10-12

Wcih HdiNhiy against tliiiC hilOW-
ing that when the engineer
reaches his deadline he is going
to blow the recall signal and
highball down the track. Every
thing goes at a clip, and in a few
minutes the train is underway
again. The event has been an
important one in the life of the
town, considering the passengers
and the freight and baggage that
have been channeled into the life
of the city. Yet it all happens so
quickly that to the unobservant
eye the teamwork is hardly ap-
parent.
The trains in their own way,
have told the history of the war.
And in doing SO they have un-
rolled through our town-and
through countless towns all over
the earth--a rich an dtimeless
panorama of faces at the win
dow, of soldiers on the platforms
whistling at girls and asking for
dates that they could never
keep, of bored dining car wait
ers and well dressed business
men sitting at their coffee above
the linen and and the silver; a
panorama of tired but patient
mothers, dusty and hot from
their long trips across Texas
and Nevada and Florida and
Virginia and all the states and
an the countless camps and
posts and training centers where
their husbands might be station
ed. And there have been the
faces of children at the win
dDws, not understanding much
about the great war in which
their own small lives had been
caught up, accepting travel and
insecurity as a way of life -
small uncertain faces looking
out on our town with the eternal
curiosity of children.
And before our own eyes we
have seen too the freight trains
rumbling over the trestles and
causeways so familiar in our
lives, carrying tanks and planes
by the thousands and jeeps by
the hundreds of thousands; car
rying the big guns buckled and
Graded to the flat cars, and the
powerful and clean appearing
tanks, and the shiny, beautifully
machined parts of airplanes. In
these days we have been in the
route of march, as other towns
have, and the long parade of war
has come past us. Much of that
clean looking equipment lies
burned and broken all over the
world now, on island beaches, in
the forests of Europe and the
stone towns pounded to rubble,
and deep in the sands of North
Africa.
Some of those faces we saw
at the window are faces no
longer-onlY memories now in
the minds and hearts of fami-
lies scattered all over the coun-
try. They were strangers to
our town. We were just an
other small coast town on the
railroad. by a river and a
bridge. Very probably they for
got Pascagoula quickly. unless
the name seemed odd to them
and they remembered it only
for that reason. But year by
ear. we saw them come
through. and reading the names
of the battles so many thou
sand miles away we could only
assume that many of them
we're there.
And we have seen some of
these faces grow imperceptably
older. We have seen them COM
ing back to the big camps and
re-deployment centers along the
Southern coast, with their cam
paign ribbons, and their scatter
ing of Purple Hearts, and in re-
cent months their bright yellow
discharge emblem.
Those faces are young and
hearty still, but the lines have
weathered a little deeper. and
the eyes have changed a little;
and the men themselves are a
little quieter standing at the open
doors of the coaches. while the
newer recruits do most of the
whistling and kidding with the
girls on the platforms.
It has all been there for us
to see. And if we will only stop
to think about it. we will realize
that we have seen it. Not the !