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Show Y. M.C. A. Goes With Soldier From His Home to the First line Trench By CHRISTOPHER MORLEY i The V. M. C. A. goes with your boy from the time he leaves homo right through the whole gamut of warfare. In those dark, lonely minutes . before he goes over the top, his last contact with this world, with this life he loves so well, is a cup of tea given him in the front line by the Y. M. C. A. . .. .... " I And as the wounded men hobble back to (he dressing station and ; men are walking back from No Man's Land with wounds that would kill most of us outright in less heroic times the Y. M. C. A. is ready with " tea, cakes of chocolate and other comforts. Every man, before his wounds are dressed, gets hot soup, biscuits whatever the Y. M. C. A. has. One Y. M. C. A. tent behind the British lines has cared for 13,500 wounded , . men in one day; 40,000 in a month. J A colonel in the British medical corps, looking out into a courtyard where 2,000 wounded Tommies were waiting stoically to have their wounds treated, cried "What utxlcr heaven would we do here without the Y. M. C. A.?" In the dressing station haggard doctors were treating wounds. And in a tent besides that courtyard the Y. M. C. A. secretaries . were brewing tea, passing out chocolates, soups, etc., as fast as they could work. i Back to these same stations rome the German prisoners, with their , - captors. . Tommy,. who half an hour earlier has been engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Fritz, now stands side by side with him, with noth-' ing but compassion for his wounded enemy. He will give Fritz half his chocolate or light his prisoner's rtgarette before his-own. ' The Y. M. C. A. is on the job. To carry on its war work to July 1, 3918, it has planned to spend (in round numbers) $11,000,000 for the work with the army and navy in this country; $12,000,000 for work with '"our army and navy overseas; $7,000,000 for work with the Bussian, French and Italian troops; $1. 000,0M for work in the priaoner-of-war camps. The budget provides for nearly $4,000,000 in reserve to provide for inevitable expansion. A total of $35,000,000. ' j |
