Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1910 — MULE LITTERS OF THE ARMY. [ARTICLE]

MULE LITTERS OF THE ARMY.

Masterly Way la Whkh Wounded Were Handled tn Philippines. The mule litter train, or “Jackass ambulance corps,” as the boys in the ranks affectionately term: it, is now a recognized institution in the United States army, says William N. Arminger, of the Sixth United States Infantry In San Francisco Chronicle. I first saw It tried at the battle of Mount Dajo, in the island of Mindanao, where our snyill force lost sixty-one men in killed and wounded. I want to say right here that too much credit cannot be given the boys of the hospital corps for the masterly way in 'which they handled our wounded under fire. With their stretchers they followed our rushes on the trenches, and as men fell under that hail of bullets the boys of the hospital corps would catch them up, lay them on the stretchers and carry them to the rear. In this humane work a number of them were shot, but there were others of * the corps ready to take up the burdenralmost as it fell. At that fight our field hospital was established about 800 yards from the base of the mountain 'under shelter of a small foothill. When a soldier fell two corps men would run. to him, and if not dead he would be placed on a stretcher and taken away "from the zona of the most deadly fire, behind a tree, some bowlder, or shoulder of the mountain. There they would apply “first aid to the wounded," after which they would carry him back to the field hospital, deliver him to the busy Burgeons and return to the battle field. At the field hospital the wounds of the injured men were cleansed, dressed and bandaged, after which the men were placed on the “litter mules" and sent back to town under escort. This is an excellent method of transporting the wounded In a rough and mountainous country, where the use of wheeled vehicles is Impossible. The litter rests on a saddle made for the purpose, and by a system of springs the Jar of the walking mule is reduced to a minimum; In climbing or descending the litter will adjust itself, and there is not the lightest- danger of the occupant’s falling out. It is eight miles from Mount Dajo to the town, over the roughest kind of trails, and some of the wounded expressed a desire to be carried rather than trust themselves to the mule litters; to carry them would have required relays of men that could not be spared, so they .were perforce obliged to take the litter, with which they afterward expressed themselves well satisfied. This method of transporting the wounded will now become a recognized institution in the army.