United States. Army. American Expeditionary Forces

“ We American soldiers in France are in for a big thing. Just how big it is and how long it will last we do not know and no one can tell us. But we are determined that America shall do her part and that we as individuals shall do ours and be the best soldiers possible, and this is some task when we remember how gallantly our Allies have fought. It will be, in our own language, "some job," and for this reason we must use every means within our power to accomplish it. So we must not forget happiness as an asset to efficient soldiering. ”

“ No dinners are served at this canteen for the airmen. Those favors are reserved for the convalescents in the hospital nearby. But the airmen are dropping in all the time for sandwiches and hot coffee, particularly after coming down, chilled and chattering, from a flight into the upper regions of the sky. If they don't drop in to get warmed up in that fashion, they know they are in for a scolding by the head of the canteen, an Englishwoman possessed of all an American mother's motherly instincts and all of the English army's ideals of discipline. ”

“ As to conditions in general, both Allied and neutral military observers have expressed themselves as astonished at the remarkably good behavior of this army of yours. The world does move. Armies no longer live by forage, loot, and pillage; but even at that, this pay-as-you-go, behave-as-you-go American Army has been a revelation to our European Allies. ”

“ It is going to be a real infant industry all by its lonesome; and already it is a pretty husky infant, with a loud honk-honk instead of a teething cry. In fact, in the few months since our collective arrival in France Uncle Sam has built up such an organization to keep his cars on the roads as to stagger the imagination of the men of big business, both of our own country and of our allies who have come to look it over. ”

“ THE STARS AND STRIPES is unique in that every soldier purchaser, every soldier subscriber, is a stockholder and a member of the board of directors. It isn't being run for any individual's profit, and it serves no class but the fighting men in France who wear the olive drab and the forest green. Its profits go to the company funds of the soldier subscribers, and the staff of the paper isn't paid a sou. ”

“ The cow, the hen, the factory girl and the cigar wrapper do better work for being in a pleasant frame of mind.
While we of the American Expeditionary Forces do not fall into any of these classes, the same is nevertheless probably true of us. We can be better soldiers if we are cheerful than we can if we are not. It may be difficult to see how you can sight a gun any better for smiling or bayonet a man more effectively when you are cheerful. ”

“ Machine-Gun-toter, Mr. Aviator, Mr. Wireless-buzzer, this has not been "the winter of our discontent"—as footless and no-use-at-all as your own work may have seemed to you sometimes. It has been the winter during which your old uncle has been laying a firm foundation for your comfort and safety and for that of the men who will follow you over—and believe us, he's done an almighty big, an almightily far-sighted, an all-around almightily creditable and thoroughly American, workmanlike job. ”

“ During the first half of January the base censor's office alone handled more than 8,000 letters a day—two thousand a day increase over December, due, no doubt, to the thank-you letters which our dutiful soldier-men felt compelled to write in return for those bounteous Christmas boxes. In the spring, though more transports will be coming over, more men will be writing letters, but still the work will go on. The abuse of the letter-writing privilege by one man might mean the loss of many of his comrades, so the long and tough job of censoring must be "seen through." ”

“ In the darkness—locomotives, auto lights in the fighting zone—a heavily loaded truck was struck by a train. The truck was overturned down an embankment, imprisoning the two men on it, killing one almost instantly and seriously injuring the other. Spurred by the latter's groans and appeals for help an officer was directing a squad of men with crowbars and sticks in an effort to lift the truck when the former actor came up. The men were making no progress in budging the heavy wreck while there was a possibility, if they did, that it would crash down on the still living man. ”

“ After all the French people in need of dental treatment have been treated, however, the Red Cross person went on to say that it might be tried out on the Americans—yanks for the Yanks, as you might say, if you were inclined to be funny about it, as you ought not to be; but we prefer to think that the war will be over by that time. Anyhow, who ever heard of an American who would own up to having anything the matter with his jaw.
Be that as it may, when you see the cussed thing on the road, jump into the ditch and lie low. It's real, and it means business. ”

“ This is what he says:
"In performing my priestly functions it has been my privilege to travel considerably among the troops, and it pleases me immensely to be able to state that I find moral conditions most satisfactory. The military authorities are vigilant in removing temptation. We have a clean army; and I am honestly convinced that the men in France are in less danger morally than they would be in service in their own country."
"The men in France are in less danger morally than they would be in service in their own country." ”

“ But, though they can fire those forty per minute, each one takes a lot out of the big fellow's life. Unlike the guns of smaller calibre, they cannot be used over and over again. They are too powerful to be used in actual trench warfare, but let a fortress, or a mountain that has perversely got in the way of operations, loom up ahead, and down it goes! ”

“ There are very few things we cannot laugh at. By laughing, we do not actually shorten the hike, but we make it seem shorter; we do not in reality lighten the pack, but we make it seem lighter, and it all comes to the same thing, for we would rather carry a heavy load and have it seem light than carry a light load and have it seem heavy. ”

“ An ambulance carries you somewhere so that you can get some rest; a traveling tooth-yankery doesn't give you a chance to rest. It's white, is the outside of the car, just like a baby's hearse, and just about as cheerful to contemplate. ”

“ A doughboy, who wears one suit at a time, doesn't have a hard job keeping it in order; but an aviator with heaven knows how many layers of clothes—oh, my!
The young women who constitute the Red Cross working staff at this particular base, are, for the most part, prominent in society in the larger American cities. Voluntarily they have given up lives of luxury to tackle the job, and a hard job it is. They live in small barracks of their own, as do the "Tommywaacs" (Women's Army Auxiliary Corps) of the British army; but they are "roughing it" gladly to help Uncle Sam win his war. ”

“ If by any chance any of you should hesitate to believe us, write to our commanders, our chaplains, our doctors—anybody in authority. They will back us to the limit—and we, for our part, will guarantee to come home to you clean in body, exalted in mind and heart, and with the record behind us of a man's size job manfully done. ”

“ People who dwell within the desolate region bounded by the Rhine on the west and the Russian frontier on the east have been in the habit of considering our national Uncle as a superficial sort of an old geezer; but the way he has taken hold of his automobile business proves that they have another good think coming. He hasn't overlooked a thing. Hard by his big new factory there is an "organization ground," a "salvage ground," a supply depot, and what is perhaps most important of all, the headquarters of a highly trained technical staff. ”

“ Next to General Pershing himself and a few other generals, Lank is about the most popular soldier in France. When his regiment—once of the National Guard—comes swinging down the pike the sidelines are jammed with other soldiers who crane their necks to get a peek at him.
Lank always carries the colors. He's now color-sergeant.
"So that fella's Lank, the great ball player," you can hear one doughboy say to another. "Well, I'll be doggonned. Looks just like any other soldier, don't he?" ”

“ Singing can clip more kilos off a hike, take more lead out of a pack, drive more dampness out of the clothing than anything else. Also, it is good for the lungs. What is good for the lungs is good for the heart. And lungs and hearts in good condition are the best possible aids to the "guts" that will win this war.
We do not need to sing "highbrow stuff." We cannot imagine American troops going into battle as our Italian allies are said to, singing the national anthem, for the simple reason that we are not built that way, that's all. ”

“ In conclusion, M. Rollett was asked if, from his journey from Charleville through Germany to Switzerland, he could form any idea as to conditions in Germany.
"No," he answered, "because we traveled through Alsace-Lorraine at night; but the German soldiers talked very freely about conditions in Germany, and they said that life in all parts of the Empire is black misery. They all long for peace; and the soldiers are in dread of the British and French heavy artillery." ”

“ One striking feature of the war is the number of women and girls engaged in various kinds of work back of the lines. The British Army has thousands of them doing clerical work or driving ambulances, while in the A.E.F. their activities so far have been limited to canteen work with the Red Cross or Y. M. C. A.
Most of them are practical individuals doing a lot of good, but occasionally one slips over imbued with the idea that soldiers are sort of overgrown bacteriological specimens to be studied and handled only with sterilized gloves. ”

“ Just one hundred and nine years ago this coming February 12, there was born, in what was then the backwoods of Kentucky, the man whose career is most symbolic of the equality of opportunity afforded by our common country. ”

“ George de Schweinitz, of Philadelphia, who has transplanted his whole sanitarium to France in order that no man of the Amexforce may be deprived of his sight where there is one chance in a million of saving it. With that in view, the chances of coming out of this mess with both eyes are exceptionally good. Statistics from both French and British armies show that of all the wounded they have had, only one man in 1,200 is blinded. If they had had the organization of the American medical force, the chance would probably have been reduced to one man in 2,500. ”

“ But if we believe what we are told, this is so, and, hence, since we all want to be good soldiers, it becomes a duty toward this end to be happy, just as it is a duty to wash your face or police your bunk, or to keep your rifle clean. It is a duty to be happy.
That is all very well and good to say, some one interrupts at this point, but you cannot be happy when your feet are sore or you do not have all you want to eat. Or, it would be easy to be happy if the mail would come, or they would "bust" the Mess Sergeant, or take some other great step forward in the improvement of the army. ”

“ In other words, mere boastful talk will not lick Germany. Guns, and the men behind them are the only things that will do the job. There is only one way for us of the A. E. F.—the men behind the guns—to bring about the peace which the world craves, and that is by resolving to make every shot from those guns talk business. ”

“ Among the idiomatic terms adopted by United States Marines everywhere, the expression "shove off" is used more frequently than any other. In the sea-soldier lingo, if a Marine goes home on furlough, leaves his camp or garrison or goes anywhere, he "shoves off."
A story comes from France of a Marine who had been acting as orderly for a lieutenant. The officer sent him on an errand, and when he returned the lieutenant was nowhere about. ”

“ Ridicule, degrading labor, insufficient food and inhumane treatment generally are the lot of American soldiers taken prisoner by the Huns. This is the experience of three Americans captured last Autumn by the German Army at the Canal de la Marne au Rhin, in the forest of Parcy, near Luneville. The deposition of M. L. Rollett, a repatriated Frenchman who was quartered in the same town with the American prisoners, made before First Secretary Arthur Hugh Frazier of the United States Embassy in Paris, throws ample light on the methods of the Boche dealing with his captives. ”