Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/240

 owner of two good, strong, healthy arms and in every way fit for service of any kind should I care to enlist again.

To get a commission as a lieutenant in the Flying Corps was not as easy as I thought it would be and I found the whole machinery of making an application so clogged with red-tape that the farthest I was able to get was to satisfy the insatiable curiosity of military authorities as to everything pertaining to myself, parents and even down to the dimensions of my great grandmother’s left ankle. I was simply out of luck!

The more I thought about it, though, the more I was determined to get to France where the big game was going on. So one bright May morning I went down to a recruiting station at 42nd Street and 6th Avenue, New York, with an entirely original idea and that was to enlist in the cavalry. I picked the cavalry because I thought the outdoor life would help to build me up and that riding a horse would not make my feet as sore as marching.

While I could have enlisted in the  as a wireless operator I believed my chances for seeing red blooded life overseas