Military Training Camp for Business and Professional Men (Plattsburgh, N.Y.); Military education -- Fiction; New York (State) -- Fiction
We went. We breakfasted. The mess shacks were those other open-sided
buildings on the drill-field which I had already seen; their
construction, being merely tarred roofs on posts and walled with mosquito
netting, promised no elegance of fare. Nor was the fare elegant: milk,
coffee, cereal, hard boiled eggs, bread, butter, a bruised apple. The
milk was of two kinds, real and canned. Used in the coffee, or with sugar
on the cereal, the canned milk was good enough as poured from a hole
punched in the container; but a wise man near me prophesied that I should
not like to drink it when diluted. Flat, he said. Tasted like chalk.
Doubtless it was chemically correct, but (you see how scientific he was)
the metabolism of the body despises chemical synthesis, and for real
nourishment the palate must be satisfied.
"Third. At once after breakfast go to the Adjutant's Office and enroll."
So we stood in line, and when on nearing the window of the office I heard
the Adjutant say to a predecessor, "Where's your thirty dollars?" I got
out my greenbacks and presently paid them in, twenty-five for our
maintenance at camp, five to be returned if during our stay we had not
damaged any of Uncle Sam's property. And since the adjutant assigned me
to a company, I began to feel that I was getting somewhere.
"Fourth. Exchange your baggage checks for camp claim checks."
None of that for me. I had known enough to bring but a large suit-case,
leaving behind everything that I could persuade myself was unnecessary.
There was a memorandum on the printed slip to the effect that trunks and
other large pieces of baggage would be stored at the post barracks, where
owners could visit them on Sunday mornings. A sad weekly ceremony for one
who had to choose from an excess of luxuries!
"Fifth. Report to the officer commanding your Company."
I did not find him. Though again I stood in line, this time with men with
whom I was to associate, those to whom I reported in the Orderly Tent at
the head of H company street were but sergeants and volunteers like
myself, though men of more experience, as I could tell by their weathered
uniforms and faded hat-cords. They filled out a card concerning me, led
me to the tent pole, and measuring my height with a crude but effective
instrument, announced "Tent Eight."
"Sixth. Bring your hand baggage to your tent."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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