“Well, no, but the General told me to come back, so I am here.”
As the General was then out in the camp Sergeant Dunbaugh suggested that the old soldier tell him just what he wanted to see him about, and, says the New York Sun:
So the story of Sergeant Busick was told—the story of a once trim young trooper and a once dashing lieutenant of the Seventh Cavalry, immortalized by Custer and honored by a whole army.
Twenty years ago Edward Busick was assigned as a private to G Troop of the Seventh, stationed at Fort Apache, Arizona. At that time G was officially lacking a captain, so a certain young lieutenant was acting commander, and for his orderly he chose one Trooper Busick.
One evening, a year later, the lieutenant received sudden orders to report immediately to a staff post. All that night his orderly worked with him packing his personal belongings and helping him get ready for an early-morning start. It was a long job, and a hard one, but the orderly didn’t mind the work in the least; all he cared about was the loss of his troop commander.
“Don’t suppose I’ll ever see you again, Busick, but if I do, and there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll be glad to do it,” the lieutenant told him when the job was finished and the last box had been nailed down.
It wasn’t very much for a lieutenant to say to his orderly, but it meant a great deal to this trim young trooper. Somehow, in the old Army, orderlies get to thinking a great deal of their officers and Busick happened to be just that particular kind. He had an especially good memory, too.
The whirligig of fate that seems to have so much to do with Army affairs sent the lieutenant to the Philippines, where, as colonel of the suicide regiment, he won everlasting honor for his regiment and a Congressional medal for valor for himself. Then on up he jumped until his shoulder-straps bore the single star of a brigadier. Then another star was added, and he became chief of staff and ranking officer in the whole Army.
And all the while the whirligig that looks after enlisted men saw to it that Trooper Busick added other colored bars to his service ribbons. And slowly he added pounds to his slim girth and a wife and children to his fireside. But as a heavy girth and a family aren’t exactly synonymous with dashing cavalrymen, Sergeant Busick saw to it that he was transferred from the roving cavalry to the stationary Coast Artillery. And through all the years he remembered the lieutenant and his promise that if he ever wanted anything he would try to get it for him.
One month ago Sergeant Busick got a furlough from his Coast Artillery company at Fort McKinley, Portland, Me., and bought a ticket to Camp Upton, New York. There were only a few men here then, so he didn’t have any great difficulty in seeing his old first lieutenant.