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Updated: May 22, 2025
If he had to die as a damned infantryman, he wasn't going to be buried as such. A troop-horse of a flanking squadron decided that he had had enough of war, and jibbed like Lot's wife. Then he got off and led the horse, which was evidently what the brute wanted, for when the man remounted the jibbing began again.
To a line officer who asked where his men should be stationed, the captain of the battleship replied, that as soldiers were no good with big guns, and as the forts were out of musket range, he should "send them between decks." This, said the infantryman, "would be eternal disgrace."
Twenty miles a day through chaparral bushes and cactus is a good day's march for soldiers, with all their equipage. The infantryman carried a rifle, belt, haversack and canteen. Tents were pitched every night and guards stationed around the camp to keep away prowling Mexicans and others who would steal the provisions of the camp.
"May make it too," he went on calmly. "You're a stronger man than Le Gaire, and that means something with the sabre. If I can convince Bell, he'll make Le Gaire decide in favor of the gun. There he comes now. Well, Bell, you've been long enough about it must be your first case." The infantryman bowed rather coldly, his back against the closed door, as he surveyed us both.
One infantryman who could bear his boots no longer had tied them to the cleaning-rod of his rifle. Another had strapped his boots to his cowhide knapsack and limped forward with his swollen feet in felt slippers.
If an infantryman be plugged he knows he has probably received "a Blighty one," and as he is taken to the dressing-station he dreams of spending next week-end in England. A wounded pilot dare think of nothing but to get back to safety with his machine, and possibly an observer. He may lose blood and be attacked by a paralysing faintness.
If such a man would know why we are not in German territory, let him walk, on a dark night, through the village duck-pond, and then sleep in his wet clothes in the middle of the farmyard. He would still be ignorant of mud and wet, but he would cease to wonder and grumble. It is the infantryman who suffers most, for he has to live, eat, sleep, and work in the mud.
Once a French captain told me that he talked to the shells. "I say, 'Bonjour, mon vieux! Tiens! Comment ça va, toi! Ah, non! je suis pressé! or something like that. It amuses one." This need of some means of humanizing shell fire is common. Aviators know little of modern warfare as it touches the infantryman; but in one respect, at least, they are less fortunate.
"Where are you from?" "New York," answered Blake, as he turned to observe a tall, good-natured-looking United States infantryman regarding him and his two chums. "New York, eh? I thought so! I'm from that burg myself, when I'm at home. Shake, boys! You're a sight for sore eyes. Not that I've got 'em, but some of the fellows have and worse. From New York! That's mighty good! Shake again!"
Have the methods of employment made the same progress? Progressive Introduction of Fire-Arms Into the Armament of the Infantryman The revolution brought about by powder, not in the art of war but in that of combat, came gradually. It developed along with the improvement of fire arms. Those arms gradually became those of the infantryman.
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