Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 252, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1918 — SERGEANT LOSES HIS LAST FIGHT [ARTICLE]

SERGEANT LOSES HIS LAST FIGHT

Soldier Wins Admiration of Comrades Through Cheerful- , ness in Hospital. HE WAS GAME TO THE END Four’ Operations Were Too Much for Strength of Non-Com. Who Was Wounded in Action ati Chateau-Thierry. An American Hospital in France.— “No, they’re not going to bring the sergeant back to the ward, boys.” These were exactly the words the nurse used. But the tone of her voice and. the look in her eyes said more. ' The little group in the ward which had been playing cards bn one of the beds to forget the tension they felt while the sergeant’s operation was taking place,’ stopped suddenly, tentlon, all hungering for good new&, “You don’t mean the sergeant’s gone, do you?” exclaimed one. \“Yes, boys, the sergeant’s gone. Four operations were just too much for his strength. He never regained consciousness.” He Was a Game Boy. “Gee, the sergeant’s gone," huskily said a chap with one leg gone, “he sure was a game boy.” “He was the best fellow I ever Knew,” said another, “and the cheerfulest, too. I’ve seen them drossing his leg time'and again, and gosh! but It hurt. But did the sergeant ever say anything? Not the sergeant—he never batted an eye.” * “Just to think,” mused a third, “it wasn’t half an hour ago when we

saw. him go out. I shouted, ‘Good luck, Sarge,’ when the stretcher was carried through the dbor, and he smiled and said: ‘Thanks, I’ll be back In a fedßmlnutes with you.’ ” The sergeant was Frank Carbaugh of Greencastle, Pa., a member of the Seventh Machine-Gun Sanitary detachment. No mother ever reared a braver son. The sergeant, who was a mathematics teacher before the war, was founded when his outfit was rushed into action near Chateau Thierry. None of his bunkies knew just how. because, as one of them explained “the sergeant wasn’t the kind of a fellow who’d talk of himself,. You can bet he was wounded doing something for somebody, though.” They did know that the sergeant lay out in the open a long time after he was wounded. Medical records show that. His left leg was badly smashed, and they operated at the first hospital he reached. But gangrene had set In, and four operations had followed. They have had lots of brave patients that doctors and nurses and patients admired unlike in that hospital, but never one just like the sergeant. The little group sitting on the cots, with the nurse, had been talking of the sergeant for a long time, when one of the boys said: “You ought to write to his mother, Miss Cutter. The sarge thought the world of his mother.” ' ‘Tm going to,” replied the nurse. “You boys write out what you think oi the sergeant, and I’ll send that, too” What the Boys Wrote. The boys did, and here are a few lines from them: Private Elmer Hyland wrote: “I was with him as sopfi as he came from the operation, and I cried when he went. He was a great boy—a clean fellow through and through. I wish my foot 'vrr so I could walk with him to the cemetery.” - Wagoner John Trask wrote: “Our sergeant Is gone. Why, I loved that fellow like ray own brothers. Pve seen other fellow’s go, but I never felt like this.” Sergeant Vincent Sauer wrote: “I never felt worse since I came in the, fight. He was game to the last; always cheerful, and when I called ‘Good luck to you.’ he answered r *Thanks. I’ll be 6. K. soon.’ We always had fun around his bed; he was so cheerful. He was one of the finest fellow’s I ever knew.” Arthur Stain, who knew the sergeant better than the rest, the boys say, because ‘he and the sarge liked to dabble in poetry;’ wrote a poem to send the sergeant’s mother. They buried the sergeant in the lib tie American graveyard In a - pretty Lorraine valley,/ with an' American flag over the coffin, as 18 soldiers fired three shots over the grave and the bugler gave “taps.” Then some of the boys whose injuries permitted their attending the funeral, gathered flowers In the valley and the nurses placed 'them on the grave with red, white and blue ribbons around them.