Guarding the Border: The Military Memoirs of the Ward Schrantz, 1912-1917

Joining the Regulars

back home I found my discharge from the national guard waiting for me, went to nearby Joplin, applied for enlistment and that night with one other recruit went to Jefferson Barracks where after final physical examination we were sworn in with a group of men from various other recruiting stations. It apparently frequently happened that men applied for enlistment but their nerve failed them and at the recruit depot they did not want to join. The club the army held over their heads was that if they did not go ahead and take the oath they were guilty of getting railway transportation to the depot under false pretences [sic]. The reluctant ones thereupon tried to fail the medical examination. One man in my group professed to be unable to read any letter of any size on the eye chart. And he could not hearing [sic] the ticking of a watch behind his ear or even loud whispers. “You can’t see very well, can you?” said the medical officer. “No sir,” answered the man, “I can’t see skeercely at all.” “And you can’t hear very well?” continued the medico. “No sir. I can’t hear skeercely at all.” “Well,” said the officer, “I guess you can see and hear well enough to soldier. Get over with that group of men who have passed.” This was on October 23, 1912, and we enlisted for three years.1 On November 1 a new law went into effect by which men enlisted for seven 3 Joining the Regulars 26 Chapter 3 years—either three or four with the colors and the rest in reserve. We congratulated ourselves on getting in just under the wire. Generally speaking, the recruit depot was something of an amusing nightmare. Recruit companies consisted of a training cadre of permanent party men—“general service infantry,” I think they were called—and the recruits. The permanent party men lorded it over the recruits in a big way, impressing on the newcomers that they were the lowest of the low. A corporal ranked about as high as a colonel in the line and even a private was an important personage. As for us we officially and unofficially were “’Cruits,” so listed on the roster. One gathered that the one unforgiveable sin at that time in the army was being a recruit. I was rather surprised the first time I did a guard and became acquainted with some of the noncommissioned officers to find that they were quite human and rather pleasant fellows when away from routine in barracks. Since I suspected that telling I had been a national guardsman would not add to happiness of life in the army, I carefully remained silent about any military background. Since obviously I already knew the recruit drill I was subjected to some appraising stares but no one questioned me. Presumably a man’s past was his own business until he was exposed. But the noncommissioned officers evidently came to certain conclusions. One evening the corporal in charge of my squad room in the 27th Company, a man who never honored a recruit with anything but a scowl, came into the room and direct to my bunk, affable and smiling.2 “Your name is Jones, isn’t it?” he asked. “No,” I said. “That is Jones yonder.” He scowled at me as of old and smiled on Jones. “Get your blankets,” he said pleasantly as to an equal, not to a contemptible recruit, “we are going to the guard house.” And so “Jones” who, we soon learned, had served in the army before, deserted and reenlisted under a false name, passed out to prison and punishment. If there were any chaplains about Jefferson Barracks I never saw them but I went once to a religious service conducted by some ministers from St. Louis. They addressed us as if, it seemed to me, we had been convicts in a penitentiary. A soldier in the ranks was not rated very high by or- Joining the Regulars 27 dinary civilians in those days and I have no doubt these good ministers regarded us as about convict social level. We did not see much of our officers but occasionally they gave lectures of one sort or another and since they talked to us as if we were soldiers and not mere recruits we were pleasantly impressed. Only one of these officers remains in my...