Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/40

22 skinned diamond exists as a monument to our skill. The target range is a document written in the passionate sweat of our brows.

During this education the first effects of discipline were apparent. Faces might darken with rage or whiten from weariness, but in the realized presence of a superior work went on without too painful comment. Occasionally, if hidden through chance by a screen of bushes, you might hear burning opinions of army life in general and stump snatching in particular. At school we had been taught that the average man's vocabulary is scarcely more than five hundred words. The understatement is obvious. Any soldier of the 305th who couldn't apply as many adjectives as that to the common noun "stump" was frowned upon as mentally deficient or as one affecting an ultra religious pose.

Such tasks were, in a sense, a digging of a pitfall for one's own feet. As the skinned diamond expanded our drills waxed proportionately ambitious. But the entire process was performing another miracle. Where formerly had slouched slovenly ranks appeared now straight lines of soldierly figures, heads up and shoulders squared, exuding a joy in things military.

"What's all this guff about West Point?" you'd hear. “Watch my outfit drill any day."

And the veterans of a week or so exposed a most amusing tolerance for newer recruits. The difference between a uniform and civilian clothing created an extensive gulf. In a few days it would be bridged. The awkward squad of the day before would face the awkward squad of to-day with expressions of veteran contempt. For the recruits poured in during October. On the first we received one hundred and thirteen, on the ninth one hundred and eighty-three, on the tenth two hundred and fifty-four, on the twelthtwelfth [sic], two hundred and eight. So that by the end of