I had a long talk with him today about the Regiment, and I find him anxious to keep up its spirit and traditions. They are as dear to him for their romantic flavor and their military value as those of the Household Guards or the Black Watch are to the Englishman or the Scot.
REHERREY
May 12th, 1918
Majors Moynahan and Stacom are being transferred to other duties, much to everybody’s regret. It looks like a break up of the old Regiment. It would be, I fear, if anybody but McCoy were Colonel. But he has a slate for promotion already; a 69th slate, and he will put it through if anybody can—Anderson and James McKenna for Majors, Prout and Bootz and W. McKenna for Captains. It will save the spirit of the regiment if he can carry this through. If the vacancies are filled by replacement we shall not know ourselves in a short time. I feel all the more grateful to our new Colonel because he had a share in planning the replacement idea; and besides, I know that there are plenty of officers at General Headquarters, friends of his, who are anxious to get to the front and to have the 69th on their service records. It would be an embarrassment to any other man to go to G. H. Q. and ask them to change the scheme of filling vacancies by replacement instead of by promotion. But I know just what will happen, when they say “Why, you helped to make this plan.” He will smile benignly, triumphantly and say “That just proves my point. Now that I am in command of a regiment I find by first hand knowledge that the original plan does not work out well.”
DENEUVRE
May 15th, 1918
Our allotted three weeks in line being up, we returned to our original stations, the only change being that the 2nd Battalion comes to Deneuvre, while the 3rd has to go to Camp Mud. I am billetted with the Curé, a devout and amiable priest—who was carried off as a hostage by the Germans in their retreat of 1914 and held by them for over a year. He likes to have Americans around, and we fill his house. Captain Anderson, Lieutenants Walsh, Howe, Allen and Parker are domiciled with me. Joe Bruell and Austin McSweeney have their wireless in a room in the house, and draw down all sorts of interesting messages from the other Sergeants. Sergeants McCarthy, Esler and Russell are next door neighbors, and better neighbors no man could choose. I can go down to the dooryard if time hangs on my hands and hear remarks on men and things, made more piquant by New York slang or Irish brogue.
It is a delight to go to our mess with McCoy’s stimulating wit and Lieutenant Colonel Mitchell’s homely philosophy and Mangan’s lively comments, and the various aspects of war and life opened up by all sorts of interesting people—Bishops, diplomats, soldiers and correspondents who drift in from afar, drawn by the magnetism of our Colonel. The food may not always be to the taste of an epicure but “we eat our Irish potatoes flavored with Attic salt,” as Father Prout says.
But my chiefest joy in life is to have Joyce Kilmer around. In the army it matters little whether a man was a poet or a grave digger—he is going to be judged by what he is as a soldier. And Joyce is rated high by everybody from the K. P. to the Colonel because he is a genuine fellow. He is very much a soldier—a Sergeant now, and prouder of his triple chevron as member of the 69th than he would be of a Colonel’s eagles in any other outfit. If they do not let us commission officers within the Regiment he will come out of the war as Sergeant Joyce Kilmer—a fine title, I think, for any man, for it smacks of the battlefield with no confounded taint of society about it. His life with us is a very full and a very happy one. At first I selfishly took him to help in my own duties regarding statistics. He was glad to help, but he regretted leaving a line company, and especially parting from a lot of friends he had made among the Irish “boys from home,” whose simplicity amused him and whose earnest faith aroused his enthusiasm.
Over here he got restless at being on the Adjutant’s force, and when Lieutenant Elmer began his lectures on the work and opportunities of the Intelligence Section—scouting, and all the rest of it—Joyce pleaded with me to get him away from a desk and out in the line. Now he is happy all the day long. He has worked himself into various midnight patrols, and Captain Anderson has told me to advise him that he lacks caution in taking care of himself, but as Kilmer has told me the same thing about Anderson, I feel helpless about them both.