FATHER DUFFY’S STORY
CHAPTER I
PREPARATIONS AT HOME
RECTORY, CHURCH OF OUR SAVIOUR, BRONX
June, 1917
War with Germany was declared on April 6th, 1917. Immediately the National Guard Regiments, knowing that they would be the first to be called from civilian occupations, began campaigning for recruits. Ours was conducted with little noise or speech making. An Irish Regiment has its troubles in time of peace, but when the call to arms was sounding we knew that if they let us we could easily offer them an Irish Brigade for the service. We were more occupied with quality than with numbers. The one bit of publicity we indulged in was to send round our machine-gun trucks through the city streets with the placard, “Don’t join the 69th unless you want to be among the first to go to France.” That was the only kind of men we wanted—not impressionable youth who would volunteer under the stimulus of a brass band or a flood of patriotic oratory. The old-timers were told to bring in friends who had the right stuff in them. The Catholic Clergy were asked to send in good men from the Parish athletic clubs.
The response was immediate. Every night the big reception rooms were packed with men taking the physical tests. The medical staff had to be increased at once to meet the situation and officers and enlisted men were impressed into the service for taking the minor tests. These tests were rigid. Nobody was taken who fell below the standard in age, height, weight, sight or chest measurement—or who had liquor aboard or who had not a clean skin. Many of those who were turned down for underweight or imperfect feet were readily accepted in other Regiments which had more difficulty in getting men. And when we received contingents from those regiments later on I often had to listen to the humorous reproach, “Well, I got in in spite of the lot of you.”
Amongst the sturdiest and brightest of our recruits were two young men who had recently been Jesuit Novices. I amused one Jesuit friend and, I am afraid, shocked another by saying that they were exercising a traditional religious privilege of seeking a higher state of perfection by quitting the Jesuits and joining the 69th.
We came back from Texas less than a thousand strong. Of these we could count on 500 for a new war, which left us 1,500 to go to meet the number then fixed for an Infantry Regiment—2,002. We were not long in reaching that number. Lieutenant Colonel Reed telegraphed the War Department for permission, pending the proposed increase of a Regiment to 3,600, to establish a waiting list, but the application was refused. In the latter days we were turning away 300 a week, sending them to other Regiments.
Our 2,000 men were a picked lot. They came mainly from Irish County Societies and from Catholic Athletic Clubs. A number of these latter Irish bore distinctly German, French, Italian or Polish names. They were Irish by adoption, Irish by association or Irish by conviction. The 69th never attempted to set up any religious test. It was an institution offered to the Nation by a people grateful for liberty, and it always welcomed and made part of it any American citizen who desired to serve in it. But, naturally, men of Irish birth or blood were attracted by the traditions of the 69th, and many Catholics wanted to be with a regiment where they could be sure of being able to attend to their religious duties. About 5 percent of the 2,000 were Irish neither by race nor racial creed.