Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/242

 showed we had been accepted, were given sealed orders and transportation and told to report to, on New York Harbor. After a long ride on the subway, trolley and government ferry I arrived at Fort Slocum. It is located on an island in the harbor and is formed chiefly of houses for the officers, regular barracks for the infantrymen, or doughboys as they are called, who are stationed there all the time, and a lot of wooden shacks and tents for the recruits who come in.

The examination I was given at the recruiting station wasn’t a marker to that which I received at Fort Slocum and as a result it was not until the night of the day after I got there that I was sworn in and duly became a recruit in the cavalry of the United States Army.

I stayed at Fort Slocum for the better part of two weeks waiting patiently for the time when I should hear my name called among the others of the daily outgoing list, and be one of the recruits to go away to be trained. I had hoped to be sent to Texas for my training but when at last I was on the outbound list it was for, Wyoming.

After a four-day ride on a troop train we