Excerpt
CHAPTER I
The Independent Regular Brigade
Place of meeting—Forces comprised by the command—Why we were not like the Volunteers—Characteristics of the professional soldier—Sketches of the more important officers—What we were ordered to do.
Yauco, the place selected by General Miles as a rendezvous for the troops of the Independent Regular Brigade, is a town of about 15,000 inhabitants, and some six miles distant from Guanica. It is connected both by rail and wagon-road with Ponce, the largest city on the island, and is noted for its Spanish proclivities, fine climate, excellent running water, and setting of mountains—luxuriantly green throughout the year.
Here were assembled on the evening of Aug. 8, 1898, all the forces assigned to General Schwan, with the exception of Troop "A," Fifth Cavalry, which did not appear until some thirty hours later. The command was composed of the Eleventh Infantry, Light Battery "D" of the Fifth Artillery, Light Battery "C" of the Third Artillery, and the troop of cavalry already mentioned,—all regulars, and as resolute and picturesque a set of men as ever wore the uniform of war.
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Because we had no Volunteers with us, we were not granted even one little word-spattering newspaper scribe, and so relinquished at the outset any fugitive hopes of glory that otherwise might have been entertained. We were out for business,—hard marching, hard living, hard fighting,—and the opening vista was fringed with gore. We were none of us the darlings of any particular State, nor the precious offspring of a peripatetic statesman with a practised pull. We were at no time decimated by disease through ignorant or insubordinate disregard of the primary principles of hygiene. We didn't write long wailing letters home because we were obliged to sleep on the damp ground, and had neither hot rolls, chocolate, nor marmalade for breakfast. We were ragged, hungry, tough, and faithful. In other words, we were regular army men, and, most distinctly, not Volunteers.
[Illustration: Statue of Columbus, Mayaguez.]
There is a personality peculiar to the professional soldier, even though he be but a half-fledged recruit, that defies analysis and baffles description. He is of course built from the same clay as his brother of the Volunteers; but the latter is a tin god, and the former is a devil. Yet the difference does not spring from anything more fundamental than environment, and therein lies the solace of the other fellow. Putting aside all odious comparisons and limiting myself to a view of the regular army man as I know him, I can simply say that in the eight months during which I underwent in his company hard knocks and privations without number I could not have found a more truly satisfactory comrade and friend. He doesn't, on the average, know much about books; nor did he ever hear of the Etruscan Inscriptions or the Pyramidal Policy of the Ancient Egyptians. He takes a grim delight in smashing the English language into microscopic atoms at a single blow....