Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/32

Rh lar Army. They appeared one day-a score or so for our regiment.

We looked at them. We looked at their service records. Then we looked at each other. We swallowed our first lesson in how to send, on order, one's best men to some other organization. Certainly, in this case, few commanding officers had parted with their jewels. Some of these rough diamonds, we suspected from a comparison of dates, indeed, had been set in chevrons for our needs. There lay their records of battery punishments and courts martial. We pitied those distant, unknown commanders. If these were their best we shrank from picturing their days and nights with the worst. The audacity of the thing caught our imagination. There was, we felt, something to be had from it. They weren't all bad, by any means. Some bccame the most useful of soldiers.

Our medical department arrived about the same time, a worried-looking little group, that trudged through the dust, dodging piles of lumber. It was led by Lieutenant James B. Partamore, who later became captain, and for a time, regimental surgeon.

Lieutenant Dennis J. Cronin was assigned as 1st Battalion Surgeon, and Lieutenant Marshall A. Moore as 2nd Battalion Surgeon.

That very day Dr. Parramore constructed a table in Regimental Headquarters. He placed upon it with proud gestures a tin of alcohol, a demijohn of castor oil, a few assorted pills, and gallons, literally, of iodine. He announced himself open for business.

Business, fortunately, was dull, so the adjutant reached out for Parramore's enlisted personnel, sat them on a bench in the hall, and—Behold!—for the first time Regimental Headquarters had orderlies. There was no doubt about it. We were growing.

On September 27th the arrival of our chaplain, John J. Sheridan, was another reminder; and two days later the