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TRENCH AND CAMP
Having Weathered Kansas Dust Storms,
89th Division Men Do Not Fear Barrage
By SERGEANT GEORGE ADRIANCE

(Assistant Editor of the Camp Funston Edition of Trench and Camp)
Upon the reservation at Camp Funston,
Kansas a monument marks the
geographical center of the United
States. Thus the 89th Division becomes
the cynosure for all eyes. Our
men come from seven states—Colorado,
Nebraska, Missouri, Arizona,
New Mexico, South Dakota and Kansas,
but, all speak the language of the
Sunflower State.
General Fred Funston, for whom
this Camp was appropriately named,
was a distinguished linguist of the
Kansas tongue. Upon one occasion in
a hot skirmish, Fred Funston was cautioned
to hold back his men. “Stop
them,” said he, “ ——, you can’t stop
them; they’re from Kansas.”
That is the tone of the Kansas language
today. We are from Kansas
and have a non-stopover ticket that
will take us straight through to Berlin.
To Do in Germans
We are all pulling together out here.
Missouri ships her mules to Camp
Funston and Arizona, New Mexico and
western Nebraska supply us with busters
to humor them. Each summer
Kansas sends a stream of tourists to
Colorado, but shopkeepers near the
Camp restore the balance of exchange
by taking the jack away from Colorado
enlisted men and shave-tails. We
have two great ambitions in life. Our
one best endeavor is to fit ourselves
to do in the German ; our second is to
boost business for the Union Pacific
Railroad. We have no monopoly on
the first, but the second has a monopoly
on us.
In reading the glowing accounts of
other cantonments written by the different
editors of Trench and Camps, we
cannot see where any of those Divisions
have anything on us. Quite like
the rest of them, we have mumps,
measles, paper work, pills, general fire
alarms and top sergeants, but thank
goodness the rest of them have a corner

on congressional investigations.
Other editors make considerable talk
about climate. This is partiularly
true of the Californians. That is the
first thing and the last thing that you
can expect to hear from a Californian.
Climate is his meat and drink. But
none of that soft, mellow sunshine for
[us,?] we like variety, and we sure get
it. Our climate sa[torn] quarter-master
a considerable sum en rations.
One-half our chow is first-class grub,
the other half is rich, black Kaw Valley
dirt. We have the utmost scorn
for the Kaiser’s barrage fire, for our
Mid-West soldiers have been wonderfully
successful in finding their way
about Camp through Kansas dust
storms.
Camp Funston is the home of the
famous 353d Regiment of Infantry,
whose enlisted men were selected entirely
from Kansas. Its commanding
officer, Colonel James H. Reeves, is an
Alabaman by birth, but Governor
Arthur Capper thinks so much of his
service to the state that he haas issued
a proclamation granting the officer
Kansas citizenship papers.

Started Recreational Hall
Colonel Reeves and his Adjutant,
Capt. C. J. Masseck, conceived the idea
of a recreational hall for the comfort
and convenience of Kansas soldiers
and for their relatives and friends
while guests in camp. Color Sergeant
R. E. Lewis, now editor of the Camp
Funston edition of Trench and Camp,
was placed in charge of a subscription
campaign and succeeded in raising
a fund of $50,000 from the generous
people of Kansas for the building
and the regimental fund. The hall is
96 x 236 feet in dimensions and is believed
to be the largest building for
the use of a regiment known to an
army camp. It provides for all sorts
of athletics, concerts, stunt performances,
dances, chapel services, drill
in bad weather, and speaking by various
celebrities.
Recently Mme. Schumann-Heink
came all the way from San Diego to
sing to “her boys” in this hall in conjunction
with a concert by the St.
Louis Symphony Orchestra. The first
Saturday of each month is “Visitors’

Day” at Camp Funston and is made
the occasion for an afternoon “hop”
for the boys of the 353d. The men
count the days between these most enjoyable
affairs. Other organizations
in the Camp are planning or have constructed
buildings of this kind, and
we pass it on to the rest of you for
what it is worth.
Now we men from the Missouri Valley
States and the Southwest have
quite generally concluded that we
have a man’s size job on our hands.
We don’t hear you down-Easterners
say any more that the Middle West is
asleep in the great crisis of our history.
The folks at home have ceased
to write us that the war will end this
summer and that we will never see
service in France. We have seen our
distinguished Camp Commander, Major-General
Leonard Wood, called to
the French front, and we know that
our work is cut out for us.

For Future Discussion
It is idle to boast of what we are going
to do when we get “Over There.”
We expect to take our orders as they
come and live in line of duty rather
than die there. Camp Funston soldiers
have quite generally agreed that
the Hun is the one who is to die for
his country.
We are all upon the point of making
a few chapters of history, but history
is made by men of deeds. The sturdy,
stalwart soldiers of the Middle West
will fight as valiantly as their brothers
in arms East and West, North and
South. But these are things that may
not be boastfully said until after we
have seen the whole show through.
They are, therefore, reserved for discussion
at the First National Convention
of Veterans of the World War.
HOW “BUTCH”

LED IN PRAYER
The tale of “Butch,” an enlisted man
of one of our machine gun companies
now in France, is told by a correspondent
with the American Expeditionary
Forces. Butch is rated a pretty
hard “hombre”—honest, efficient and
faithful as they make them, but not
very careful about his language and

more than willing to scrap most any
one any time. He and the chaplain
are excellent friends, however. After
some persuasion, with arguments addressed
to his senes of fair play, Butch
was induced to promise that some day
he would attend a church service. On
the Sunday he chose, as it happened,
the chaplain had been called away just
before services and a visiting chaplain
occupied the pulpit. The rest of the
fellows seeing Butch up in front were
glad to have him with them.
The visiting chaplain looked out
over the congregation of freshly
shaved, sprucely dressed soldiers for
someone to lead in prayer. Somehow
his eyes fastened on red-haired Butch
sitting only a few feet away. the little
congregation grew tense as they
waited for the chaplain to speak. You
could just feel he was going to call
on Butch.
He did.
“Will this young man kindly lead
us in prayer?” he asked.
Butch got up. Every eye was on
him. Everyone wondered how he’d
make out, being called on like that
the first time he had been to church
in years.
But Butch was equal to the emergency.
“Let us have five minutes of silent
meditation,” said Butch.
TANKS MAY PLOW
WAR-RUINED FARMS
The usefulness of the tank, most
spectacular invention of the war, may
not end with the signing of peace. The
great work has been suggested for it
of making productive once more the
shell-torn fields of Belgium and
France.
In the farming regions where hard
fighting has taken place, the land has
been blasted and ripped open by high
explosive shells, and drenched with
poisonous chemicals. A number of
scientists expressed the gloomy view
that the topsoil had been so scattered
and so much of the lower and unproductive
strata brought to the surface
that, added to the poisoning, many
years must pass before fertility could
be restored.

The surface was so criss-crossed
with trenches and blasted into deep
shell craters that farming, even by
powerful tractors, seemed impossible,
until a Canadian officer suggested the
use of tanks. Attached to tremendously
strong harrows and scrapers, they
may go back and forth across the
fields, uprooting endless lengths of
barbed wire, unexploded shells and
other debris, and filling in the craters
until the ground is fit to be turned
over to its owners for the planting of
crops.

COUNTER BARRAGE
First Munitioner—“My old man’s
won this medal. Don’t it make yer
jealous?”
Second Munitioner (with great
hauteur)—Not me! My Bill went out
to kill Germans—not collecting sooveneers.”
—Punch
SOLDIERS’ MAIL SHOULD
BE ADDRESSED WITH CARE
More than 3,000,000 pieces of mail
are being sent to the American soldiers
in France every month, according
to a statement issued by the Post
Office Department. A large number
of pieces consist of parcels post packages
containing articles which soldiers
can purchase in France cheaper than
the cost of mailing.
The Post Office Department, which
has been subjected to considerable
criticism, is making an earnest effort
to enlist the aid of relatives and
friends of the fighting men abroad in
expediting the handling of mail.
Repeated emphasis has been given
to the statement that all letters and
packages should bear the full name
of the soldier for whom they are intended.
It is claimed by the Post
Office Department that many of the
delays complained of were due to insufficient
address.
Writers have been advised against
the use of initials, as more than one
soldier may have the same initials.
It has been pointed out that a letter
addressed to “J. F. Smith” might be
for John F. Smith, James F. Smith,
Jeremiah F. Smith or Jonathan F.

Smith.
In addition to containing the given
name of the soldier the address also
should state his rank: private, corporal,
sergeant, lieutenant, captain,
major, lieutenant colonel, colonel,
brigadier general, together with the
full name of the unit or organization
to which he belongs. “Somewhere in
France” is not the address of the
American soldiers overseas. It is
“American Expeditionary Forces,
France.”
The Post Office Department is urging
writers not to address letters or
packages with lead pencils.
Real War Heroes

Found Back of Lines
Going over the top is not as bad
as getting to the top, in the opinion
of some of the American soldiers now
in France who have written home to
their relatives and friends.
Trench fighting has its thrills and
soldiers caught in the exciting swirl
of battle are exhilarated and stimulated
to a high pitch. “There is
something doing all the time in the
trenches and a man’s a man and
knows it,” says one soldier.
But the real heroes of war, according
to soldiers “Over There,” are
those who remain cheerful under the
“Come here,” “God there” orders and
the unexciting life back of the lines.

“Heroes,” said a British artillery-
man to a group of American soldiers.

“Heroes. There ain’t any. Leastwise
your hero isn’t the blighter who
rolls out over the top with a bloomin’
bayonet and a yell and goes at Fritz.
“Well, maybe they are heroes. But
they aren’t heroes any more than the
fellow who just simply goes to war
and stick through it year in and year
out and smiles and is always ready
for more. It isn’t the bloomin’ gettin’
killed that is so bad. You never
hear anybody grousing about that.
But it’s the way we have to live, the
‘Come here,’ ‘Go there’ orders and
the grub and the whole bloomin’ life.
That is what you hear the kicking
about. But every once in awhile
you’ll find a fellow that is smiling all

the time except when he laughs. He
is the real hero of this war. One o’
his kind will keep a whole battery
in good spirits and do more to win
the war than a shipload of ammunition.
“Goin’ over the top isn’t all there
is to this hero business. It is a
blamed small part of it. It only takes
an hour or two and a blighter only
does it once in awhile.
THAT “TIN HAT”

PILLOW DE LUXE IDEAL WASH BASIN
JUST RIGHT AS A COFFEE POT
FINE SHAVING MIRROR
CANT BE BEAT FOR A MILKPAIL
A GOOD
WATERING BUCKET
W.F. SPARKS

TIGER AT THE FRONT
Princeton University has 8,000 men
in the military and naval service of
the country. Among the 1,200 commission
Princetonians are three
brigadier generals, three colonels,
nine lieutenant-colonels, thirty-one
majors, 320 captains, 290 first lieutenants
and 331 second lieutenants.
NINE PAIRS PER MAN
Nine pairs of shoes will be sent to
General Pershing for every man in
the American Expeditionary Force.
It is estimated that nine pairs will be
needed in twelve months because of
the hard wear to which footgear is
subjected on the march and in the
trenches.

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