The book-bug never came my way again, for I do not look upon _What Outfit, Buddy?_ as the result of answering some insistent, invisible summons to write a war book. I did not intend writing a war book when I started the first line of _What Outfit, Buddy?_ I merely hoped to let Jimmy McGee, a real, regular fighting Yank who has seen his share of _la guerre_, tell the story of the things that he encountered as a member of the American Expeditionary Force. I sincerely trust that my original intentions have carried. If I have allowed Jimmy McGee to tell you his story, then I have fulfilled my hopes, for I believe that Jimmy McGee’s story of the war is merely the universal version of the great adventure as held by legions of his comrades. In my effort to let Jimmy tell his story I have not tried to use book language. I have used to the best of my ability the speech of men who became a real integral part of the _guerre_.... To do that it was necessary to let Jimmy and his comrades speak French in the manner of American soldiers. I tried to register the true value of their struggles with the difficult French language by resorting to phonetic spelling in the case of practically all French words which have become a part of the American Expeditionary Forces’ vocabulary. Students of the beautiful, musical language of France will, I trust, grant me this indulgence, as I have taken the liberties only in the desire to tell America how its fighting men overcame the difficulties presented by living side by side with a people who spoke a foreign language. T. Howard Kelly. CHAPTER I—“WHAT OUTFIT, BUDDY?” Jimmy McGee, hanging on to a long, lean loaf of brown bread with his left hand and swinging a heavy, dangerous-looking cane in his right grip, moved leisurely over a white road of France toward the four-year-old battlelines that stretched between _Verdun_ and _Saint-Mihiel_. McGee, himself, was camouflaged beneath an assortment of things and stuff that would have made Panhandle Pete of funny-paper fame look like a smartly dressed gentleman in comparison. His make-up was not calculated to allow observers much chance to criticize his own physical attributes or failings.