Small cause for wonder is it that it is currently reported that "no army ever went to the battlefield better protected against the pitfalls of army life than the American forces in France." Every friendly and helpful activity receives his cordial support—Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., Knights of Columbus, Salvation Army and all. He is deeply concerned not only with the quality and quantity of the work in France but also with the reports that are to go back home concerning what the boys are doing on the far distant fields of France. Still more is he concerned about the effects of their stay upon the boys themselves. "Everything possible is being done to see that these young Americans who will return home some day shall go back clean."
He is deeply interested in all the athletics and sports of his troops. He simply is insistent upon one main quality, "everything must be clean."
A certain reporter for a New York newspaper sends the following incident:
Passing a dark corner one night I encountered a M. P. (Military Policeman). Some of the M. P.s are a bit rough. They have to be, and they would wade into a den of wildcats.
"Hey, you pencil pusher," he called, "did you see the big boss?"
I had.
"Well," he said, "you've flashed your lamps on the finest man that ever stood in shoe leather."
One day General Pershing arrived at a station where a motley crowd greeted his coming. The following day there was posted on a bulletin board of the barracks a cordial commendation of the young French officer who had so efficiently done his duty at the station in handling the somewhat unruly assembly at the arrival of the American commander and his staff. That is General Pershing's way. Quietly cordial, looking for good in every one of his men and usually finding it, a strict disciplinarian and quick to punish neglect or an evil deed, he is the idol of the army.
"General Pershing is one of the finest men I ever met. Everybody in the army admires him greatly," declares a prominent American officer, and another adds, "I have never met a nobler man in my life than General Perching."
According to a statement of an orderly sergeant of the commander, the General has a regular order for beginning the work of every day. Rising at five o'clock there is first a half hour of setting up exercises which the two men take together. Next the General, although he is at an age when most men abandon running except as a necessity or a last resort, goes out for a run of fifteen minutes. Later there is a united attack upon the medicine ball and there is no slight or "ladylike" exercise. Although the sergeant is twenty-five years younger than the General, he acknowledges that he is usually the first to declare that he has had sufficient for the beginning of the day.