Philip A Embury Journal #3

train was a favorite one.

The cadetes were doing all the guard duty and had fatigue details out every day. I was fortunate in getting into the 15th Detachment as there were many M.C. fellows there that I knew, such as Pickles Hintz, Jack Oakley, Bob Powel, etc, but I was also unfortunate for the 15th F.D. went into quarantine for twenty one day right after we got out of our six day quarantine on arriving. All troops are confined to the camp for six days after arriving. Another pleasant thing was the fact that I couldnt get

a bath until the middle of the seventh week after arriving. When I did get a bath it was a dirty French place, and only eight tubs for about three thousand men in town. It was a good thing that snow was on the ground and no fire in our bunk room or we would have all died of disease. As it was there were as many as sixteen cases of mumps at one time in our detachment alone.

For the first month the food was terrible. All we got was bully beef, and boiled potatoes, bread, no butter, and dish watter for

coffee. The coffee was hot and that is all you could say for it.

There were twenty one posts on the guard that were enough for a camp twice the size. A couple of months later it was cut to three posts. While I was confined to camp I couldn't bare to see all the good moonlight nights go to waist, so Herb. Kendall, or Charlie Grant, and I usedto run the guard and go for walks in the evening in the country. We got away with it allright, but nearly got caught several times.

About two weeks after our arrival I got a room

orderly job. Thanks to Jack Oakley, and Bob Powel. That relieved me of all formations, such as revelie, retreat, and drill which got terribly menotenous when we got it twice a day when we were not on fatigue or guard. The only good part about drill was the hikes we would get about once a day out into the country.

While I was room orderly I acted as pallberer for a squadron man's funeral. A cadet was burried three days before we arrived. For a

while there it seemed as if there was a funeral every day. They were all squadron men, but several cadets came mighty near having theirs.

I had my room orderly job for a month or so when they made me a corporal. That was also soft, but I had to stand formations, but the drill had been discontinued as there was enough work to keep the cadets busy all the time. There were enough corporals so that our turn for guard and fatigue details