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Show THE PROGRESSIVE OPINION N . - Rfl See Here, fW KgMS Private Hargrove! rjA Marion Hargrove .. vf i U THE STORY SO FAR: Private Marion Hargrove, former feature editor of the Charlotte (N. C.) News has been in-ducted into the army and has completed the first few days of his training at camp. He has given prospective inductees ad vise to "paint the town red" before getting into the army and .once in he tells them that "the first three weeks are the hardest." He has gone through the experience of the army physical exam, has been fitted with a uniform, been classified as a cook and has bad a good taste of KP duty. In fact, he has had so much of the latter that his sergeant Is beginning to despair. So is Private Hargrove. He has completed a KP ses-sion and returns to his quarters. said something to the corporal, who took me by the elbow and guided me gently around the building at a spot where, he said, the battery off-icers wouldn't see me drilling and thereby be discouraged. "This," he said, pronouncing each syllable slowly and distinctly, "is what we have come to call a rifle. It is used for the purpose of shooting. Primitive man, we are told, did not have a rifle. Primitive man was forced to bring down his supper with a knife, a spear, a stone, a bow and arrows or his own little primitive hands." I nodded automatically and paid scant attention to all this. I al-ready knew it. "Today," he continued, "civiliza-tion has been improved upon to the CHAPTER III I tiptoed into the squadroom so that the sergeant wouldn't notice that I was wearing fatigue clothes. His voice rang out to me as I passed his door, and I slunk in guiltily. The sergeant's face showed that he was hurt. "You were on KP again today, weren't you, Har-grove?" I lowered my eyes and scuffed my toe against the floor. "Yes, sir." "Oh, I get so discouraged some-times," the sergeant said. "I try so hard to make something of you and what good does it do? Every time I go through the kitchen I see you in there scrubbing the sink! How many times have you been on KP this week?" "Only three times, sir," I said, avoiding his eyes. "It was all the corporal's fault, sir," I said, looking around to make sure that the corporal wasn't there to defend himself. "Just because I right-face- d a few times when I was supposed to left-fac- and I zigged when I should have zagged, and be-cause I forgot and smoked in ranks and a few other things like that." "And," said the sergeant shaking his head sadly, "you just turned around casually every time he or-dered 'about-face- .' And you kept watching your feet all through drill. And you stayed out of step all morn-ing and you took those plowhand strides of yours and walked all over the man in front of you. And you sassed the drillmaster three times. And you generally spoiled the whole morning's drill. Why can't you be a good boy and learn the drills?" "I don't mean to be bad, sir," I said. "And that's another thing," the sergeant moaned. "Why must you The first three or four times are the hardest. After that, you get the swing of it. It's really tame stuff, you decide. "The next exercise," says the ser-geant, "is what we call the quar-ter, half and full knee bend. It goes like this." He shows you. When you see it, the corners of your mouth go up in a sneer of derision (unless the corporal is looking). Ho Hum, you say to yourself. Why do they take up time with this play? "Exercise one, two, three, four " Quarter, half, full recover. Your knees get That Tired Feeling after the third time. After the sixth time, you feel your eyes getting glassy. After the ninth, you're float-ing in space. By the time the ex-ercise is over, nothing matters any more. A messenger from the battery or-derly room mounts the platform and talks for a while to the exercise sergeant. The sergeant's face falls. He turns to the ranks with disap-pointment written all over his face. "Sorry to tell you this, boys," he said, "but we'll have to stop here. No more exercise this morning. All play and no work you know what that means. You have to take your typhoid shots now." Before you have marched off the drill field you notice that you still haven't collapsed. In fact, you find to your disappointment that you're beginning to feel good. All lim-bered up. Quarantine has been lifted for us of the July 17 contingency. If the sergeant wasn't looking over my shoulder, I'd say it's about time. Before our release from isolation, Army style, I was able to get around and swap lies and gripes with ev-ery one of the boys in our group. A little under 100 per cent of them came up with the same ac-count, which reads as follows: "Our "In the first place you can peel potatoes with a bayonet." extent that " and he went on and on. After that we began at the be-ginning of the manual of arms and took each command slowly. The corporal sweated for forty-fiv- e min-utes. "Are there any questions now, Pri- - battery has the worst food in the Army. We've got the worst ser-geant in the battery. No kidding, though, our platoon makes all the others look crummy. Here two weeks already and I haven't pulled KP or had the sergeant jump me a time yet. Don't tell a soul, but I think they're going to make me a corporal." All ol which is a lot of hot air. Actually, they're fighting to" get into the mess hall first at every meal. They're gaining weight and tanning where they used to blister. They're sassing their sergeants, who deplore them as the sorriest bunch of rookies they ever sweated over. Every one of them has been on KP at least once. As for being made corporals in the next few days ho hum. -S- a- By the time Congress says I may go home and be a mere civilian again, I suppose I'll be the best sol-dier at Kort Bragg. At least I seem to get more individual attention than anyone else. Private tutoring, I al-ways tell the boys. We were at work the other morn-ing learning how to handle a rifle. The sergeant was putting us through our paces. "Hargrove," he said with infinite sweetness, "where is the balance of your 'rifle?" "This is all the supply sergeant gave me, sir," I said. "I thought it was all here." The sergeant slapped his forehead and mumbled something furiously under his breath. "Wonder-child,- " he said, "this (pointing) is the bal-- ' ance of your rifle. I can't imagine why they call it that, unless it's be-cause when you hold the rifle there vate Hargrove?" I thought for a while. "Yes, sir," I said. "That is, 'yes, corporal." What use will I have for a rifle? I'm going to be a cook." The corporal mopped his brow. "Well, Private Hargrove," he said, patting me lovingly on the shoul-der, "you'll find use for it. Ha! ha! In the first place, you can peel po-tatoes with a bayonet. And in the second place if you're as good a cook as you are a soldier you'll need it every day. After breakfast, lunch, and supper you'll need it to protect yourself from murder at the hands of your comrades in arms." "See here, Private Hargrove," the sergeant sighed. "Can't you try just once to do something right? Don't you want to be a credit to the platoon? You don't want us to be the worst bunch in the battery after we've been the best for so long, do you?" "Please, sergeant," I begged him, "couldn't I just stay inside for this once? They'd never miss me at rifle inspection. I'd be very quiet and nobody would ever know." He ignored the request. "Try hard to remember, private, these few simple things. When the officer reaches the man next to you, open the rifle. When he grabs your gun, don't hang onto it or you'll have a bellyache for two weeks. When he throws it back to you, don't catch it with your chin. And when you get it back, snap the trigger. And heav-en help you il you ball this thing up!" The forces of Destiny placed me second in the front rank at inspec-tion. We stood at attention for three minutes before the inspecting offl "That's all, Hargrove," he said, mopping his brow; "you're not sup-posed to salute a officer just go to bed." say 'sir' to the noncommissioned of-ficers and forget to salute the com-missioned ones?" He mopped his forehead wearily. "Do you know what the top sergeant told me to-day?" "No, sir," I said, twisting my cap and awaiting the worst. "He said and don't 'sir' me that when the battery commander had you on the carpet yesterday you stood "there leaning on the table, and you shifted your- feet eight times. And you saluted four times during his talk and when you saluted you gave a European heel-clic- k and bowed. And when the captain dis-missed you, you told him, 'Thank you, sergeant' and forgot to salute when vou left." si if "I remembered it on the way back to the barracks, sir," I ex-plained. "Then I went all the way back to the orderly room and sa-luted him properly." "Holy jumping Jehoshaphat," moaned the sergeant. "Was there anything else, sir?" I asked in a whisper. "That's all, Hargrove," he said, wiping great drops of perspiration from his forehead. "Thank you, sir," I said. I sa-luted, clicking my heels, and turned to go. "Hargrove," the tired voice said. "You're not supposed to salute a noncommissioned Never mind, Hargrove. Just go to bed." Pa "Just look at me," the exercise sergeant roars in a voice that would go four miles against the wind. "Just look! I weigh two hundred and eight pounds and I'm in the worst physi-cal condition I've ever been in! I ought to be busted for the way I've allowed myself to get fat and flab-by! I'm ashamed!" You look at the exercise sergeant and wonder what he's leading up to. To you he looks like the "after taking" part of a malted yeast ad-vertisement. He could probably lick his weight in police dogs. His next statement explains ev-erything. "Now I'm going to show you an exercise that's so simple it's almost ridiculous. Even I can do it. Now, I don't want to hear anybody down there admitting he's in worse shape than I am. If I can do it, you can do it or else!" He outlines the exercise and you begin wondering how a contortion-ist happened to wind up at Fort Bragg. This d "fat and flabby" calisthenics master doesn't have any knees or elbows. You stand there waiting to hear his spine fall apart under the strain, but he comes up all in one piece. 'That's the way I want you boys to do it," he says, beaming cheer-fully. You begin to feel your face getting gray and you wonder why a bolt of lightning doesn't come to deliver you from the prospective tor-ture. "One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. One. Two" cer approached, t or seconds alter we brought our rifles up for inspec-tion, a fly which seemed to be a lit-tle larger than a June bug landed on my forehead. The sergeant shot a warning glance across my bow and I decided to humor the fly. It would go away soon, I told myself, al-though I knew it wouldn't. The inspecting officer still had not begun his rounds. He was waiting for us to get off our guard. The fly demonstrated its impatience by stepping up to double-quic- k in its pacing. "Oh, if I only had you alone!1' I thought. The itching nose became more insistent. A gnat made a three-poi- landing on it and began playing about the left nostril. I gave the sergeant a glance which said distinctly, "This can't go on much longer. Something's go-ing to pop!" His return glance said, in italicized words, "Bat just one eyelash and I'll break your neck!" Suddenly the inspecting officer grabbed the rifle from the hand of Grafenstein, who stood beside me. His lightning swoop on the gun, cou-pled with the speed with which Graf-enstein relinquished it, completely paralyzed me. An almost inaudible groan made me look at the sergeant. He was making furious grimaces at me and his face looked as if he was going to burst a blood vessel. He kept wagging his eyes down to the bolt of my rifle. A split second be-fore the officer reached me, I man-aged to pull the bolt. I could see the sergeant unload-ing freight carloads of potatoes for me to peel. I could see the next weekend, with me restricted to quar-ters while the rest of the platoon en-joyed themselves in town. The officer reached me several lifetimes later. He looked at my face and sighed wearily. Then, with infinite tenderness, he gently lifted the rifle from my grasp. He inspect-ed it and handed it back to me ag though he was laying a brick on an orchid or giving a hundred-poun- d weight to his aged grandmother. He sighed again and passed on to the next man, whose rifle he grabbed with the confidence that the man wouldn't fall apart when he snatched It. I (TO BE CONTINUED! "Hargrove," he said, "where is the balance of your rifle?" with one hand, it's balanced." He then went on for a few minutes, ex-plaining a few of the things I had still failed to master. "Now do you understand it?" he asked, beaming at me with a look made of all sweet accord. "No, sir," I said. The sergeant sighed wearily. "Private Hargrove," he said, "right down by the next barracks there's a group of young people who are prac-ticing with rifles for the first time. They haven't had theirs for three days like you have. Run along down there and see if you can keep up with them." I tried. There was some confu-sion about the orders, however. At the end of a movement where I wound up with my rifle on my left shoulder, the rest of the detail had theirs on the right. I noticed also that I usually finished a command long before the others. The sergeant in charge of the de-tail commenced on this. "You know, Shorty," he said, "you have all of these routines worked out much bet-ter than the War Department was able to do them. Where it took them sixteen counts to complete the sixteen-cou- manual, you always manage somehow to complete it in twelve." I was still blushing modestly when he called the corporal over. He THE "Sunflower" is one of the of the quilt designs to make the diamond-shape- d pieces are easy to cut and a block works up quickly. Use brown-flecke- d per-cales, tiny patterned cream and ! - 5- -' j Sunflower Quilt ,t yellow calicoes, grass-gree- n and leaf-gree-n cottons. Do the center in vivid yellow. Quilt has 12 pieced blocks, each 14 inches square 12 plain blocks. To obtain cutting patterns for the Quilt Pattern No. 5161) complete piecing and finishing directions, amounts of all materials specified, send J6 cents in coins, your name and address and the pattern number. HOME NEEDLEWORK 149 New Montgomery St. Milt San Francisco, Calif. ' 2 Nightgown Set C TUNNING nightgown so flat- - tering and so comfortable. The simple little bed-jack- will come in handy many a time. Barbara Bell Pattern No. 1835-- de-signed for sizes 12, 14, 16, 18, 20; 40 and 42. Corresponding bust measurements 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42. Size 14 (32) gown requires 4'A yards material, bed jacket 13A yards. School Belle .) A CLASSIC for the school-gir- l; wardrobe, this casual jumper with the set-i- n belt and ample pockets will make her eyes spar-- ; kle even more brightly, getting her off to a perfect start. Barbara Bell Pattern No. 1871-- Is de-signed for sizes 6, 8, 10, 12 and 14 years.' Size 8 requires 2Vi yards of terial for the jumper and 13A yards for the blouse. Due to an unusually large demand and current war conditions, slightly more time is required In filling orders for a few of the most popular pattern numbers. Send your order to: SEWING CIRCLE PATTERN DEPT. 149 New Montgomery Street San Francisco Calif, Enclose 20 cents in coins for each pattern desired. Pattern No Size Name Address f You breathe freer instantly as just ?V 2 drops Penetro Nose Rlni t"W roP3 open your II cSed nose to give niunyjf your head cold air. mrJ Caution: Use only as directed. 25c, 2M times as much for 60c. Get Penetro Nose Dropg ine - Relief At Last i For Your Cough J Creomulsion relieves promptly be- - ?' cause it goes right to the seat of the E- trouble to help loosen and expel germ laden phlegm, and aid nature to soothe and heal raw, tender, in-flamed bronchial mucous mem- - of branes. Tell your druggist to sell you hai a bottle of Creomulsion with the un-derstanding you must like the way it a quickly allays the cough or you axe to have your money back. - CREOMULSION - for Coughs, Chest Colds, Bronchitis I WOMEN or GIRLS Over 16 Years For Work with Local Mfg. Co. EXPERIENCED OR WE WILL TRAIN YOU We Have Government Contracts for the Armed Forces. Steady Work for and After Duration. Weekly Wage Guarantee. No Limit to What You Can Earn. SALT LAKE KNITTING WORKS 244 West 2nd North - Salt Uke City, Utah Essential mar workers must have certificate of availability if back aches from need of diuretic aid Functional kidney disturbance due to need of diuretic aid may cause stabbing back-ache! May cause urinary flow to be fre-quent, yet scanty and smarting! You may lose sleep from "getting up nights" often may feel dizzy, nervous, "headachy." In such cases, you want to stimnlat kidney action jast. So if there is nothing system ically or organically wrong, try Gold Medal Capsules. They've been fa-mous for prompt action for 30 years. Take care to use them only as directed. Accept no substitutes. 35 at your drug store. IF YOUR DEALER IS OCCASIONALLY OUT OF it's because hundreds of millions of Camel cigarettes are now being sent to men in the service. In addition to the government's own purchases for our fighting men, veterans' organizations, fraternal orders, clubs, friends and relatives everywhere are sending them Camels. Yes, Camels! After all, Camels are the favorite cigarette with men in all the services Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard. AND THE SERVICE COMES FIRST! i j WHILE wetohanveewpupsehaekds Ctoammeele'st ptrhoi-s- J J jy overwhelming demand from Uncle Sam's F'i&zl ir'V'-- fighting men and from the folks at home, f: v 7 yet if your dealer does not always have '' ' Camels for you, he asks you to be patient fe J, while he is temporarily out of them, be- - f j Lal lieving you will agree that the men in the C W Ifygg service should come first. jrf Based on actual sales records, i'K t' the favorite cigarette with men r''dzt-'A- " In the Army, the Navy, the Coast . P-- -'' Guard,and the Marines is Camel. i Vf' -rF- - . j YOU WOMEN WHO SUFFER FROM I HOT HASHES If you suffer from hot flashes, weak, nervous, cranky feelings, are a bit blue at times due to the Junctional "middle-age- " period peculiar to women try Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Compound to relieve such symptoms. Taken regularly Pinkham's Compound helps build up resistance against such distress. It helps nature! Also a fine stomachic tonic. Fol-low label directions. UYDIfl E. PINKHAM'S S2KSK5y Get Into Action For Full Victory! By PAULMALLON Jeff' Released by Western Newspaper Union. AMERICA'S PLACE IN POSTWAR WORLD Straight from the front comes evi-dence now which will prick more bubbles of American wistful vista-in-on the war and postwar world. This time, it is in a new book, "Re-por- t on North Africa," by Kenneth G. Crawford, a sincere, superior re-porter. The troops in the field are encoun-tering minor experiences with the British, French, Arabs, Italians, and others, which will make them even more isolationist this time than be-fore, Crawford thinks. They will look upon "only Amer-icans as good people, and only America as a good country, and only complete isolation from the rest oi the world as a good national policy," he writes. He does not want this, but he is a good enough reporter to recount faithfully the facts he found. Crawford warns America to steel itself again for the reaction experi-enced after the last war when we be-came Uncle Shylock to the world. "It will be the same again," he says. The British Tommy is inclined to think we came in a bit late, and he has done most of the fighting. The French are thankful for another chance of national existence, but ap-parently are politically dismembered and confused. The American soldier looks upon the war, he says, as "an unpleasant Job to be got over with, and to quar-rel about for years to come about the question of whether we were suckers or really had to do it. But the British Tommy thinks only of Dunkirk and is fighting for his home-land." The evidence of this discerning re-porter substantiates again in its broad aspects the reports of the five senators from the far Pacific. It calls again for development of more American in deal-ing with allies and more realism in both war and postwar preparations. It completes the picture, the new undeniable, realistic picture which supplants the grandiose notions drawn for ns by propagandizing lead-ers in the early stages of the war. Mr. Crawford is no propagandist. He was sent abroad by the leftist-winge- d of all American newspapers, opposed to state department policy, pro internationalist, etc. What Mr. Crawford found at the front was so irrefutably Opposite that he resigned his position with that newspaper and now is associate editor of Newsweek (no propagandist sheet either), S S S HOW HOME FRONT REACHED CONFUSION STAGE How we got into a confused condi-tion on "the home front" is shown in another new book by that name, written by the New York public rela-tions genius extraordinary, David Hinshaw. Books have been raining out of the skies for months, mostly bearing panaceas for postwar or re-citing exciting individual adven-tures. What this war needs is some good straight reporting and straight think-ing, and it seems to me that what the liberal Mr. Crawford has done with North Africa, the conserv-ative Mr. Hinshaw has done at home. From journals, speeches, announce-ments, and actions, Hinshaw has ac-cumulated a disillusioning record. His main point is that the Hender-son era was founded on distrust of the government for the common sense and integrity of the people and his testimony calls for a renew-al of democratic faith. S AMERICAN T The theme of a postwar peace based on American and neighborly negotiation without too much trust in Utopian formulas is developing fast. Another globe-trotte- President Johnston of the United States Chamber of Commerce, has returned with a speech advocating just such a course. Mr. Johnston wants recognition of "our immense stake in law and or-der, in decency and prosperity all over the planet" but not on the basis of disarming alliances, or tailor-mad- e plans for new world orders. He says a strong, prosperous, America can serve as a mighty bulwark of world peace and progress and he could have said the mightiest. The plan which would be adopted he rightly predicts will come slowly, painfully, and on a basis of evolution in collaboration among the nations. My own guess is the main inspira-tion of such an evolution will be a gigantic Hull trade program. $$ CONGRESS AND THE MILITARY Senate defeat of the Wheeler Draft Fathers Exclusion bill was due to circumstances foreseen. Neither house dare stand firmly against the military leaders on a point of mili-tary necessity. On no important phase of the war effort has congress ever overridden the plans of army and navy direc-tors. Farthest congress has gone in that' way was in the farmer draft directive last session, but this in-volved the vital matter of feeding the United Nations. ? GAS RATIONING CHANGES While Prentiss Brown's office made the announcements reducing B and C card values and lifting A's the policy represents largely what Harold Ickes wanted. The off-icial explanation of the change was B and C cards had that too many been issued by local rationing boards, but no figures were issued. The matter obviously is more com-plete than that and includes black market operations and other phases. However, the change is likely to be followed by a "toughening" policy. lest W Rapid Flashlight A new portable photographic m flashlight, using a mercury lamp about the size of a cigarette, goes on and off in one millionth of a second, and it can "freeze" the 'a action of a wheel making 70,000 revolutions a minute, says Col-- l" lier's. While the life of this lamp s? is only one second, it will provide ac a million flashes or the number nc used in 10 years by 20 busy news- - paper photographers, ate Chinese Deceive Spirits To "deceive" the spirits, Chi-nese parents give an only son a girl's name. r. r. o-- r' - - o-- - o-- - o-- - o-- - o- ASK MS I I Atiowsn t A General Quiz ? The Questions 1. What were Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos in mythology? 2. How many nations are includ-ed in what we call "The United Nations"? 3. How many tons of blueprints go into the making of a 35,000-to- n battleship? 4. In law what is the meaning of pro tempore? 5. Which continent has the greatest area? 6. What fraction of the total ra-diation of the sun does the earth get? 7. Who owned the sword called Excalibur? 8. In the Roman army how many soldiers did a centurian command? The Answers 1. The three fates. 2. Thirty-fou- r. 3. Approximately 37 tons of bluep-rints- are needed in the building of one 35,000-to- n battleship. 4. For the time being. 5. Asia. 6. One five hundred millionth of the total radiation. 7. King Arthur. 8. One hundred. Height of Dust Storms Dust storms have been record-ed as reaching to a height of three miles in the United States. |