Trooper Tales — page 15: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

INTRODUCTION. Civilians write army stories. Commissioned officers write army stories. Enlisted men laugh at the former because the author is remote and they cannot bruise him, Had they the power to lure the civilian into their midst they would shortly drill him full of real army col- oring, and his effusions would be shrunken ‘with lean, beautiful wisdom ever after. But, since he keeps his per- sonality removed, the soldiers can only laugh. The literary efforts of commissioned officers are dis- cussed in whispers by the enlisted men, because they are only enlisted men, while the commissioned officers are old and young gods, who become very masterful beings when criticised audibly by men from the ranks. But no one can deny that the army stories of commis- sioned officers are full of officers’ instinct, and officers’ fleckless uniforms, and clubs, and ladies. ‘The enlisted men who emerge upon these idyllic pages are sort of baneful and temporary necessities, as are warts. There are orderlies with square shoulders and brick faces, whose vocabularies consist of “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir,” uttered in disfigured English. In the stories of commissioned officers the enlisted man is a thing for duty, not for speech —a thing to fight if necessary, not to think—an animal whose pastimes are cards, canteens and colored ladies— (EC) CORMMKELIOOL<S