Those two squibs are more than mere jokes; they sum up the point of view of the soldiers on the Rhine. The French, and like them the British and Belgians, only too glad that the struggle that had worn into their very souls was ended at last, had settled down to all the comfort and leisure consistent with doing their full duty as guardians of the strip intrusted to them. The Americans, like a team arriving at a baseball tournament so late that they could play only the last three innings, had gone out on the field to bat up flies and play a practice game to take some of the sting out of the disappointment of finding the contest over before they could make better use of their long and arduous training. It was this species of military oakum-picking that was the second grievance of the American soldier on the Rhine; the first was the uncertainty that surrounded his return to the land of his birth. While the neighboring armies were walking the necessary posts and sleeping many and long naps, our soldiers had scarcely found time to wash the feet that had carried them from the trenches to the Rhine, much less cure them of their blisters, when orders swept over the Army of Occupation calling for long hours of intensive training six days a week. It is said that an English general on an inspection tour of our area watched this mile after mile of frenzied trench-digging, of fake bombing-parties, of sham battles the barrages of which still made the earth tremble for a hundred miles around, of never-ending “Squads east and squads west,” without a word, until he came to the end of the day and of his review. Then he remarked: “Astounding! Extraordinary, all this, upon my word! You chaps certainly have the vim of youth. But ... ah ... er ... if you don’t mind telling me, just what are you planning to do? Fight your way back through France?” V GETTING NEUTRALIZED