In pursuance of this policy every embarkation camp in France was established in two isolated sections. One section was known as the “dirty” camp and the other as the “clean” camp. Upon arrival from the front the troops first took quarters in the “dirty” camp. Between the two sections lay the buildings in which the camp administration conducted all the various processes of preparing soldiers for embarkation for the United States. One of the most important of these activities was bathing and delousing the troops. As far as scientific measures could prevent it, not a louse was permitted to cross from the “dirty” camp to the “clean” camp. The measures were highly effective. Only a few men were found to be infested upon arrival in America. For these there were final delousing facilities at all our debarkation camps. When the overseas veterans took trains for home at the Atlantic ports they were completely verminless. The medical officers at the demobilization centers in this country failed to discover a single exception. The embarkation plant at Bordeaux was known to returning soldiers as “The Mill.” Its processes were typical of those at all the embarkation camps in France. The Bordeaux mill ground swiftly, yet ground exceeding fine. To it came the raw material--dirty, ragged, weary humanity. It reached out for this material, whirled it into its machinery, and a little while later delivered from the other end its finished product--clean, well-clothed, deloused, and comfortable American soldiers, their service records compiled up to the minute, American money in their pockets, and a mighty self-respect swelling their chests. To France America sent the best clothed and best equipped army that had ever stepped on European soil. The two million men arrived in France outfitted almost completely in new clothing and equipment which they had received in the American embarkation camps just before they boarded the transports. In 1919 we brought home the first American army that had ever fought in a great war and returned in anything but rags. By special act Congress gave permission to each discharged soldier to keep his uniform and certain other equipment when he returned to civilian life. Even though, for most of the men coming up into the embarkation ports in France, their final discharge was only a few weeks away, nevertheless the military organization there saw to it that every man was decently clad before he began the return voyage, and this often meant the issue of entirely new articles. The Quartermaster Corps abroad wanted to win from the folks at home the verdict, when they had looked over their restored boys--“Guess they took pretty good care of you over there, after all.”