Page:History of the 305th field artillery (IA historyof305thfi01camp).pdf/49

Rh whose sincerity you couldn't question, you might conceive a certain admiration, but with such a war facing a nation the burden of proof, unfortunately, rests on the objector.

Worst of all, conscientious objectors complicated paper work. From many sources came orders and suggestions as to their treatment; and when they flagrantly refused to obey commands, as they had a nasty habit of doing, they had to be courtmartialed, and they usually picked the most inconvenient times for their performances, arguing, perhaps, that salvation lay there. We desired to see the last of them. But how? Providence reaches its ends in devious ways.

This is really not straying to another topic. Just then one of our castles tumbled. We weren't going to live, fight, and die together as we had started at Upton. Specific orders commenced to arrive, demanding large numbers of men. Up to the end of November we had lost by transfer two assigned officers, two attached officers, and 346 men. We got in return First Lieutenant Frederick H. Brophy, of the dental corps, on October 16th; Second Lieutenants George H. Hodenpyl, Karl R. McNair, and William A. Walsh, on November 12th; Second Lieutenant H. Stanley Wanzer, on November 22d; and some straggling enlisted replacements.

It is impossible to say where those friends of a few weeks went. They left, more often than not as casuals, bound for some remote division in the South or West. We didn't see them again.

This abrupt snapping of barrack ties painted for us more colorfully the serious nature of our new profession. With a sober comprehension we watched the small bands of casuals, bent beneath blue barrack bags, go lurching down Fourth Avenue to the station—away from Upton, away from us who had more often than not learned to like them, away from the land of passes home.