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Show RETURNING YANKS A HOMESICK LOT Never Want to Look Statue of Liberty In the Face Again. ARE WILD TO GET ASHORE "When I Get the United States Under My Feet I'm Going to Stay There," - Said One Homesick Soldier. Sol-dier. New York. To understand the feelings feel-ings of the Americans boys released from the war and pouring back Into the United States as fast as steamers can bring theui from Europe, one must have known the pangs of acute homesickness. home-sickness. They are downright homesick. You read It In the hungry eyes that peer from the troopships when the government gov-ernment revenue cutter with Its little handful of Americans in civilian clothes runs alongside. From every Inch of space along the gunwale, from yardarms and rigging, from the topmost top-most pile of life rafts to the bottommost bottom-most porthole,, are yearning faces. They know the coming of the cutter Is a sign of deliverance after the transport trans-port at the threshold of home has been detained at overnight quarantine off Fort Hamilton. Now they will be able to go on up the bay. Faint "Ee-yow" Grows to Wild Yell. At first a faint "ee-yow !" comes from one or two throats, and then ripples rip-ples along the deck, Increasing in volume vol-ume and shrillness till It becomes a wild whoop, reverberating across the bay. A month ago it would have served for a battle cry. Today It is a shout of boyish delight, of greeting for the little cutter load of civilians the first group of Americans the soldiers have seen In months. Somewhere In that shout there Is a plaintive note, and you get its meaning mean-ing if you are one of those first civilians civil-ians who board the transports as the group on the United States cutter Immigrant Im-migrant do, scrambling up a ladder while the boats are under way, for the troopships lose no time In starting their wheels at the signal from the customs officers. "Does it feel good to get back?" you ask the first boy who grabs your hand on deck. "Good?" he repeats ferver.!y. "Gosh ! Nothing ever felt so good in the world. Yon can tell 'era all when i get the United States under my feet it's going to stay there. Some bird said when he got back from the war he never wanted to look the statue of liberty in the face again. That's me. In a little bit she's going to see me coming home for the last time." It was Tom O'Donnell of Chicago who made that long speech. He was one of the third . constructional coni- pany atrial service, who came home on the British boat Orca, and he and more than 10,000 other "Yanks" re- turned from Europe this week and are now at Camp Mills, L. I., waiting to be mustered out. As these troopships come through the Narrows into the upper bay the sun is rising like n huge red ball above the roofs of Brooklyn, silhouetting its spires and towering buildings and glinting glint-ing across the rippling bay. Through an avenue of bristling masts the transport trans-port bears Its soldier cargo on toward the North river till Fort Hamilton has been, blurred Into the morning mist and the masonry giants of. lowr Broadway stand out against. the northern north-ern sky. "Glad I'm an American." And the homecoming soldiers, officers offi-cers and men alike, lean against the rail and drink in the beauty of it all as if they never could get enough. An old-time bark swings at anchor close by, her four masts and square rigging in picturesque contrast to the crazy-quilt crazy-quilt camouflage of half a dozen ocean barges moored near her. Ferries loaded load-ed with New Yorkers going to work scurry by, while their passengers wave handkerchiefs and cheer the-' homeward-bound soldiers. An officer of the aviation corps these first troops to come back are nearly all of the air service takes a long, deep breath. "The most wonderful roadstead in the world. It's glorious. I'm glad I'm an American," he said. "You said something, brother," said a private who was leaning over the rail at his elbow. |