Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 188, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1916 — ANOTHER LETTER FROM MAJ. HEALEY [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER LETTER FROM MAJ. HEALEY

Rainy Season At Llano Grande Camp —Explains Misleading Newspaper Articles.

Llano Grande, Tex., Aug. 1. The Republican: Today starts our fourth week in camp at this point and the day opened with a dasning rain. Just as the trumpeters were sounding the reveille, which is blown at 5:30 and >s the signal for getting up, the rain began to pour down with a tropical sp'lash. There is a difference between the rain here and back in Indiana. The difference is in the fact that there is practically no thunder or lightning here and that the ran comes frequently from almost a dear sky. Another difference is the fact that little wind accompanies the storm. Still another is the fact that the rain is always qiute warm and one can get soaking wet and never chill a particle. Some say that we are entering upon the rainy period and that we may have almost daily showers for several weeks. We are prepared for the rains, as our camp is now well drained, the tents trenched and all supplied with the extra tops or “flies” that make them as dry as houses. There are some things we need and which we understand we are to receive, namely, cots M and tent floors, and there are daily reports that these things are coming. need adequate mess shelters and kitchen shacks. Rensselaer, Monticello, Valparaiso and Plymouth each have quite well sheltered kitchens, having used some parts of the old mess shacks that were brought from Indianapolis. Some conxpanies, however, are without any kind of covers over the ranges on which the meals are cooked. Portland, which adjoins the Valparaiso company, cooks and serves its mess right out in the open. Last week hay was issued for the bed sacks and when the order came to get the hay there was a grand rush for the place where the hay was ricked up in bales and the sight of several thousand soldiers filling these sacks was an amusing one. 'When tent floors and cots arrive there will be no room for criticism and even without these things we seem to be getting along very nicely and what sickness there has been has not been of a serious nature and can be' accounted for from the sources of change of climate, change of diet and (because in some instances men unfit for military service had been passed at the examination held in Indianapolis. The camp sanitation is excellent. Last week I made an inspection of the kitchens of the battalion with a regular army inspector and he pronounced the kitchen Company Cos Monticello mighty near perfect from the regular army standpoint. He said that the Rensselaer comr--"” was not far behind. Cook Joe Wingard, of Monticello, and Paul Overton and George Copas, of Rensselaer, were swelled up with pride and you can bet that their kitchens are always ready for inspection. Some very misrepresenting articles have appeared in northern newspapers lately, depicting conditions that never existed here. I feel that they were sent largely by recruits who have never experienced any camping hardships and who are unable to see any reason why things were not prepared ready from the start. These letters argue for better preparedness and may do some good in that respect but they cause unjust criticism of those who are not to blame and undue worry from those who have our interests so naturally at heart. So long as railroads have wrecks, so long as train connections are missed, so long as there are shortages of mules and horses and wagons, so long as there are miscalculations by human beings, just so long will there be disappointments both in the army and in civil life. I understand that the government rented this tract of land with the understanding that it was to be cleared up by July Ist and that water was to be brought in, and the water pipes all laid ready for the occupation by the soldiers. The clearing process was retarded by the rains and a shortage of labor and that was the first trouble. Then the rains continued for five days after our arrival and the tentage failed bo arrive because the demand for it was such from various sources that all could not be supplied at once. I have seen just such disappointments in civil life. Contractors promise houses ■“ter occupancy on certain dates but rains and transportation and failure to get labor and a few other things interfere in Indiana just as they do here. We must remember that this preparedness idea has hit us rather of a sudden. It has proven nothing more than it has the unwarranted confidence and self-satisfaction of our

people as a whole. For years people 'had talked and newspapers had argued against large appropriations for the army and navy. I recall how much a lecturer in Rensselaer only a short time before the European war broke out was applauded when he told of the shameful waste of money for the construction of a great navy. I remember when Bishop Quayle in an address in Rensselaer some ten years ago made slighting remarks about the officers of the United States army and belittled the notion of maintaining an army was cheered by those who heard him and to my notion it is to these people and not to the congress or the president or the army heads that the fact that soldiers were compelled to sleep on the ground without proper tentage and were compelled to go for a few days on short rations and without water or ice is chargeable. We are a people of sentiment and of emotions. We are hot and cold. For two years now we have realized that our army was weak and our navy was inadequate and we swung away from our opposition to a larger army and navy and began to demand them. And now we find unfair and irrational criticism because after years of neglect afid bad reasoning there is not on the spur of the moment everything in readiness as we might expect it in a home we had been planning flor many months. • We had a wamnig in 1898 and we knew then that we were unprepared. But we Slept for seventeen years and the nap weakend us and the past year has not been sufficient to catch up what we lost. Mothers and fathers saw the horrors of war without realizing the necessity of preparing for our protection and it was the fuss they made that accounts for the fact that their sons slept on wet ground without propel tentage. They should not try to shift the responsibility at this time but atone for the errors of the past by supporting congress and the presidents of the present and future. I do not feel at liberty to discuss any subject from a political standpoint, but I do feel that those papers that were calling out so loudly for the training of young men for service should not raise a voice now against the very policy they urged. Had it not been for this call, we should never have known how poorly prepared we were. It is better that the troops kept here for many months and the effect of the concentration and training be studied and the errors corrected in fact and not in theory than that they be sent back home with the objects of the call defeated. It is a good thing that we are not at war with Mexico. It is a good thing that conditions did not resolve themselves into the necessity for our being rushed into battle across the Rio Grande. It is better to have slept for a few nights in the good old U. S. A. without tents and cots and bed sacks than to nave had things suddenly demand that we be rushed into the horrors of a war when we were unprepared. Had Carranza known hovV very weak we were and had he been able to gather his army together and undertaken an invasion of the United States I shudder to think of the immediate results because of our lack of training. We have learned something during the past few weeks and the lessons are only starting. No one intelligent enough to realize how unprepared we are should demand that the troops be sent home until they have finished the first lesson in training. There is nothing more unAmerican. Certainly such demands serve a poor place in politics. I have no sympathy with them. It would be easy for me to write too long a letter, for there are some things I feel readers of The Republican would be interested in, but I must close for this time, simply appending a few notes about the boys. Lieutenant Watson returned last Friday from the 8-mile hike quite badly overcome by the heat. He recovered within an hour and is now back on duty again. Today he is the officer of the interior guard, being assisted by Lieutenant Garland. The hike last Friday was made into the “back country.” It was about a mile longer than we had expected to go but we were encouraged and deceived by the cool of the morning. We started out at 6:40 and returned at 10:25. The rests were frequent but an oppressive heat settled down at about 9 o’clock and the day was a warm one. The highest temperature of the past week was 96 here. Yesterday 82 was the highest. It is now 9:15 and the temperature is 84. Of course, yesterday and today were cooler on account of the rains. The sun is coming oijt brightly now and I shall not be surprised if it is much Warmer by afternoon. We have been watching the Indianapplis papers, which arrive here only two days late, and have been pitying you poor northerners, for we have had some wonderful days and the nights are alwafcs cool. . Mosquito nets which fasten to the tentsand droop over the soldiers were issued last week and their use is compulsory as a precaution against the

malarial carrying mosquito. There are not many mosquitos here and they are not so targe or noisy and do not bite so hard as our Hoosier brand. Jimmie Eldridge and Joe Elder, of Rensselaer, and Bell, Fisher, Joe Prestpn and Harry Warfel, of Monticello, with Forney and Laßrigue, of Valparsisy, figured in two baseball victories Sunday defeating the third battalion of our own regiment in the morning and the first regiment in the afternoon. Eldridge got two three-base hits in the afternoon game and brought in four of our five runs. Albert Dunn is getting along fine on his job as sergeant of the etables. He has no kick at the army and is glad he came. William E. Clinton, a mechanic of Brook, hss been transferred from Company M to the headquarters as a sergeant. Leo Lyons, Wade Furnish and John Robinson were transferred also, the first two to the machine gun company and Robinson to the headquarters company as a mounted scout. Harold Bartee, of Remington, member of Company C of Monticello, was transferred to the headquarters company and will be a mounted scout and the orderly sos Lieutenant Arthur Tuteur, who 's a battalion adjutant and the regimental ordnance officer.

Up to today the discharge papers of Corporal Adolph Hess have not arrived. The statement that the application had been made several weeks ago was not correct. The application had to originate with Hess himself on prescribed forms and in the case of a non-commissioned officer has to go to the war’ department. I have not heard of any discharges yet but several cases are pending, among them Emerson Coen and Paul Overton.

Pete Winters is generally considered the best drilled man in Company M. He served for some years in the German army and every motion he makes is that of <« soldier. Captain Tuteur and his assistants are doing a fine work with the company and it is certain to become one of i he best in the regiment or the brigade. Grant Wynegar and Joe Elder suffered some yesterday from what appeared to be a case of ptomaine poisoning, apparently from canned salmon eaten Sunday evening. A number of others had slight cases but they are all right again. Jay Nowels is making a fine first sergeant and Company M is always on time flor every formation. He is being ably assisted by Sergeants Ernest Moore, Scott Chesnut, Grant Wynegar and Orville Bowsher. The latter is one of the best drill sergeants in the guard and was complimented by a regular army officer last week. The officer said that Bowsher had the best commands he had heaid given by any non-commissioned officer of the camp.

Lieutenant Healey is now the regimental commissary officer. His job involves the figuring out each day of the amount of food needed for the regiment and then of seeing that it is ordered and delivered. Last Sunday there was issued a ten days’ supply of all unperishable articles, the amounts being as follows: 8,850 pounds of potatoes, 840 pounds of beans, 15 cases of tea, 9 crates of bacon, 825 cans of evaporated milk, 134 cans of syrup, 420 pounds of prunes, 45 gallons of pickles, 520 pounds of rice, 2,100 pounds of sugar, 42 packages of gold dust, 60 cans of stringless beans, 250 pounds of onions, 500 pounds of coffee, 400 pounds of lard, 207 cans of pineapples, 58 cans of apricots, 139 cans of peaches, 71 cans of applies, 48 cans of pears, 48 cans of cocoa, 11 cans of apple butter, 72 cans of cherries, 304 cans of peas, 46 cans of blackberry jam, and many, many other items. In fact, the ration being an a cash basis, there can be drawn anything that any cook or company commander wants. More than two tons of beef and 5,195 pounds of bread, these being of daily issue, are in the current 10-days’ requisition.

The regimental exchange which was started about July 15th with capital supplied by investment from the companies. Each company put in S3O. The business is being audited today and it is understood that about $1,500 has been earned. Sergeant James W. Spate is in charge. The money will be divided among the companies to be invested in mess luxuries and for amusement and athletic purposes. There are a number of picture shews located near the camp and these furnish evening enjoyment and are patronized. It is claimed they are taking in from SIOO to $250 each night. There will be some Texans get rich during the time the soldiers are here.

By an oversight in the payrolls Company M was not paid when the other troops rece ; ved their money Sunday. The pay was for only 12 days of June and it is now expected that this company will be paid a few days. The payrolls have gone in for July and it is hoped that we will not have to wait until the last of August for our pay. MAJ. GEORGE H. HEALEY.