he anvil clang of his staff will arouse. A
hand embroidered silken bag is handed to you in the most charming
manner. What Buddie could resist such appeal?

It was during our days in this area I was appointed Division Burial
Officer--undertaker for the entire Division. The order, duly bulletined,
at first shocked me--what qualifications had I for a work so unusual?
However, I promptly accepted it for reasons two-fold: First, it is not
the part of a soldier to question the wisdom of orders, and, second,
anything and everything done for Old Glory is an honor. Jealously I
raided the archives of the Personnel Department at Headquarters, my
"towney" Captain Brown of Grand Haven, Michigan, helping me, and studied
all Orders and Bulletins bearing on the subject, "how to identify,
register and bury the dead." The responsibility was indeed weighty and
the work vast--to organize, equip and drill burial details; to bury our
own dead, all enemy dead and horses; to assemble personal effects and
identification tags found on the persons of the deceased; to bathe,
clothe and prepare bodies for burial; to furnish coffins, gravediggers,
firing squads and buglers. Daily report of all burials was to be made to
the Graves' Registration Service at Chaumont. It can easily be realized
how important this work became as we grew nearer the fighting front. On
battlefields, drenched with deadly gas, under fire and amid conditions
and scenes most revolting and appalling, the burial parties worked,
usually in gas masks for protection against odors and fumes.

Physical exhaustion, occasioned by exposure at Brest, the fatiguing
journey across France, and the forced march of many kilometers, under
full pack, from rail heads to billets, accounted for the numerous
pneumonia cases that now appeared. In the unsettled, formative condition
of things, we were not prepared to fully cope with the situation. Our
nearest United States Base Hospital was at Dijon, sixty kilometers
distant; and to this point it became necessary to send such of the
seriously ill as could be safely transported. Many, however, were too
weak to undertake such a journey; and, as no suitable buildings were
available, the situation became truly distressing. There was not a
single Army corps nurse or welfare worker of any sort within miles of
us, and the critical nature of it all can be more readily imagined than
described. Our doctors and corpsmen of the Sanitary Regiment did
everything pos