Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 180, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1916 — BOYS ALL HAPPY IN COMPANY M [ARTICLE]

BOYS ALL HAPPY IN COMPANY M

New Tents Have Arrived and Conditions Have Generally Improved. Llano Grande, Tex., July 25,1916. The Republican: •Well, I am writing under conditions much more favorable than I did on previous occasions. The improved conditions prevailing about the camp has had a splendid effect on all. New tents for all the companies in this regiment arrived and have been put up and the camp now has a line appearance. The tents axe the large pyramidal, being comfortable for eight men and possible for sixteen. We have eight in each. The men are evidencing great pride in their arrangement and uniform trenches and tV tidies' along streets and 1 street grading is aiding to remove the depression that enshrouded us when we were damped in mud in the small pup .tents. Mosquito bar has been issued to each soldier and cots are promised but it is said the company can not get them out for some time. An ingenious Texan has been manufacturing a folding cot and selling each for $1.75, but I do not .believe there is 30 cents worth of material and labor in them. They serve a temporary purpose, however, and many have been buying ithem, especially the Nebraska soldiers. We are now getting a fairly suffkaeflvt daily issue of ice and we •have water in pipes at the doors of the company kitchens and we also have shower baths for all and the long walk to the lake is no longer necessary. Aside from the general absence of grass, the ground being bare except in spots, our camp is an improvement over the camp at Fort Benjamin Harrison, for the larger mesquite trees have been saved for shade and/ more attention paid to the beautification of the camp. It gets mighty dry down hehe and deep holes that are being dug to catch the water from the shower bath houses do not show any evidence of ever having been moistened. Yesterday a detail

of eight men working in relays of two men at a time on a hole to be 7 feet in diameter and 14 feet deep went only 6 feet deep in seven hours digging. East night some water was run into the hole to soften it up, if possible. The ground is almost like hard pan when two feet below the surface and gets harder as you go deeper. -Five or six feet down there is considerable alkali. The deep -holes are meossialry to dispose of the waste bath water, for if it was drained into the low country it would serve as a breeding place for mosquitoes. All -gieasy waiters from the kitchens are vaporized and all garbage solids are burned'. This has proven a fine way of eliminating flies. Any soldier who diops a particle of food stuff on the galound as made to understand 1 that he is contributing to the spread of disease and the possibility of a general epidemic. There are many soldiers who are receiving their first lessons in hygiene and permanent (benefit will be the result.

It seems that many grape-vine Stories get back home. The one about Dieutertanf Watson’s sickness and death wlas the most glaring. He was sick for only about a day and a half on the train, suffering from a fever that 'hits many when -they enter the south. Emerson Ooen suffered about the same. Each was given good care in a Pullman (berth and each has been

on the job every minutte since coming here. Andther story of purely stockyards origin was the one about “Jonesey” Weimar kiflirg a Mexican burrow or a Texas steer or something else while on guard. Tlhetra was nothing to it and “Jonecey” has been plagued consiideasajbly by the report. He “walked his post in a mid Wary manner” and there was only one thing tfojut he would' have taken a shott at and that was a Mexican bandit. Some changes are taking pi ace here. John Eigeldbach, who came down as company cook, has transferred* to the division bakery at Harlingen arid is well pleased with the change. He visited Company M and informed the hoys that he had lit in a good place. Orpfhia Gant is working with SeWgean/t Spate in the regimental exchange. Albert Dunn has been transferred to the supply company and made a sergeant in charge of horses. Under the new regulations there are iso battalion quartermasters and lieutenant Healey has been transferred to the new machine gun company. HA company was made up from details from each company and will have a Lewis machine gun. The gun is now at Harlingen, where officers and mm will be taken for instruction two or three tunes before the- gun is brought over here. William Clanton, John Robinson, Barry Spate and Leo Lyons are mentioned for transfers to either the machine gun <xr headquarters’ companies. Some of the traasfieas are made with a view to promotion and John Robinson is to he made a sergeant. I just made a trip down Company M street to atifeeataan if there woe any

newts for publication but there was rione. lieutenant Watson agugested that it be made plain that Company M whs not the only company that was short of .tentage upon arrival here. There were two battalions, eight companies, in the same fix. Some who sent letters home complaining evidently left the impression that Company M was the only company. Also that there was a deplorable shortage of nations. The officers of Company M ate with their men during the first ben dsiys after arriving here and whatever shortage there was came through poor railroad transportation, insufficient wagon -transportation and a shortage of supplies in the little town of Mercedes, the only trading point, which had suddenly witnessed a growth of buyers from I#oo to almost 10,000. Captain Tuteur, in whose hands the company fund provided by the good people of Rensselaer, was placed, has spent it with the best judgment and none have suffered unnecessary hardships, in fact, the only suffering was that occasioned by the expected accumulation of misfortunes in laying out a new camp in a new country during several severe daily rainstorms. Hunters who have spent several days along the Kankakee river have experience every hardship that the sol driers have had here -and it is regretted that same have beeh influenced by the letters depicting horrors that have never existed.

Jn previous letted* I neglected to return universal thanks to the Pocahontas and other ladies who made <the fever bands for the company. The act was appreciated by aid and much good is expected to result. So far there has not been a serious case of illness in Company M and the men seem to have passed through the early stages of acclimation in the moot approved manner. Before leaving Farit Benjamin Harrison the company was visited by Clyde Comer, of Farmland, who was during has residence at Rensselaer the first sergeant of the company. Clyde still has a military training and he expressed regret that he was not new a member etf the company. After returning to Pfermileiod, where he conducts a store, he sent *o the company a present of a full case of pineapples, 24 cams, as fine ones as I ever ate. Clyde wiH be the subject of praise far same time to come. Letters received the past week from Rev. Asa McDaniel, J. J. Montgomery and others have been welcomed by aM. Write, friends, whenever you can. Maj. GEORGE H. HEALEY.