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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 17, 1930)
- I X (■ 11' i * i (i) i ^ CHltSTHAS IRES PN^ £>Y Otf. N C NEPNLY . It wfts • h«Hara OiriftniM ef w« H>* nt in *17. played S«nty CUu^ n.'arly all nifht bat all hf pat in socks a lot of whistlin’ and wailin' death and destruction. Somebody said ere had '*■* on run. Ye frods! If *a did. I’d bate to hare b^n “in when tbe fioche were on top. ! 1 f I hope I never get in a muddier hole than (that was. A heavy snow bad fallen, and the* it got enough to melt the snow on the ground and turn tbe feat into rate. It made that ditch toe sloppy even (for animals toistay in, ranch less men who were sup^.^d to be fight- in’ for “democracy,* sornebod> ^id. IVi like to get hands on the guy who said that Jens8 Sfetybody thinkin’ about savin’ his own guts. Nobody got time think ojl dthose lovely gilt-edged pHndpUi IhM war started shout Anyways, we were trying our best to p warm, dry and most of all, aane. We*d take tarns at guard duty out in the rate and be tween times try to sleep eff our worries on the foul smoilin’ floor of the dugout. Cripes! Wasn't this never gonaa stop? Did we have to sit tltenj.and let him find us and blow us all to hell without us get- tin’ a man-steed crack at ’ira ? Then somebody over in the corner would start muiriblin/ then cryin.’' and finally jump up with a howl and race out the door only to be knock- ‘ ed cold by tbe guttiest shave-tail in Black Jack’s army that I ever saw. Believe me. this Looie was all man. He’d joi n0 d the outfit just ’fore we ceme up and there wasn’t much known about him. He loosened «b that night, though. Seems like he was scairt nearly to death bpt kept talkin’ and talkin’ so’s to show the rest of us he wasn’t I got kinda next to *m and Yore long he was spielin’ out his whole family history. Seems like his ole man coulda got ’im 'most any job back home H(fg he wouldn’t have to be in the thick of it over there with the Frogs, but he had pride, tlif kid .did. The gal he was so stuck on didn’t have much respek* for 'im in that way, so be ups and says he’ll show ’em what guts ha’s got And with that he joins np. Then his ole man made ’im take a commission he’d bought for ’im amd then ’ tried his damnedest to tie tbe kid down in the trainin’ camps. The youngster was too set no finjshiiMtirhat he'd started to he manages to get over on the first We was sluin' there for awhile and all at once'the noise j eWtsMe btefpteK The Ijooie blew his whistle a»H we all ! piled out like rats out of their holes to take opr places along the trench. Just as we expected, the Hbinies at tacked ue. The|r cams out of that foggy s<reen( in front •V i 1' i > * isx [ of us like s bunch of howlin,’ yippin’ Corhenches only they was howlin’ just to keep up tbeir own nerve, not because they was blood-thirsty or nothin’ like that. Then some guy comes jumpin’ down on me and for awhile 1 was very busy pntil I finally jabs ’im in the beOte »nd then be lairs vary, very still. No time to think, though, ’cause they was scrappin’ go in’ on all around me. Then one of their officers jumps up on e parapet and yells some thing in German and the whole lousy bunch of ’em starts to tear out toward Berlin. I hear a whistle blow and out we go after ’em on a counter-attack. In a minute we’re on ’em like they was on us and the whole bloody act is done over again. But it looks like we can’t hold the posi tion so back we go to our muddy, stinkin’ ditch. AD this fight hi’ men killed and wounded, and not an inch gained or lost for either aide. It’s a damn good thing I didn't think about it aU then or else I mights done somethin’ craxy. t Well. I gets back and then starts to see what damage has been done, but mainly to see if our kid Looie has puDed through o.k. Somebody yells at me from the dugout and I goes in to see what they want There lays the kid in our Chap lain’s arms as white as anything I ever saw. His eyes are standin’ out like two big searchlights and then with a little weak smile he says, “Hello. Mac.” Gee, I ain't never cried Yore, but when that kid looked at me like that, I felt a lumpy feelin’ in my throat so’s I couldn’t hardly answer ’im. I could tell he was done for os so I says. “Hello, Loo tenant. How's tricks?* “Nothin’ doin,’ Mac,* he says. “But I shown ’am that I had guts, and after all, Mac. it’s like Father here says. Once you show life you got guts, you got 'im licked. Dyin’ ain’t losin,’ Mac. not if you die right. And that’s what I’m tryin’ to do.” “Sure* I says kinda cracky-like but I see it’s too late ’cause he’s all limp like a rag, and sure enough gone. It’s a damn shame a kid like hifn has to go. He didn't no medals or nothin.’ He just went out and kept goin’ till a bullet hit *ira and then that was all. J was just luckier than he was. I saw his folks afterwards and his gal too. She was married then. They may a’ been his folks and all that but none of ’em knew the kid like I did. War didn’t make no man of 'im, it just made ’im a man sooner. It was in ’im all tbe time. Yea can’t get around it, there ain’t nothin’ noble about war, but I guess people won't see that. Everybody gets crusy when the band starts playin.’ Why shouldn’t they? Didn’t w#? A?!-IRATIOH fVtja ^ fallen. Withered away, I « | ti -X I Gone the rose Of a yesterday. r Ideate changed, f 3. f tL Dreams are fading, ’ i j ± j i, T / , i .* Gone the hue. The stem remaining. —KJL M JLL ri P * ; . I