THE youngsters at Camp Upton looked with admiring and envious eyes
at the ribbons pinned on the left breast of the man who entered
headquarters. Then they looked up at the face of the wearer of these
emblems of service in the Indian Wars, Cuba, and the Philippines, and
they saw a sturdy campaigner of field and desert, his face bronzed by
many scorching suns. On the left sleeve of his coat were the three bars
of a sergeant with the emblem of the supply department in the inverted
V.
This ghost of the old Army seemed to feel a little out of place for a
moment, and then he turned to Sergeant Dunbaugh and said:
“I’d like to see the General, if you please.”
“Have you an appointment?” asked Dunbaugh a bit hesitatingly.
“Well, no, but the General told me to come back, so I am here.”
As the General was then out in the camp Sergeant Dunbaugh suggested
that the old soldier tell him just what he wanted to see him about,
and, says the New York _Sun_:
So the story of Sergeant Busick was told—the story of a once trim
young trooper and a once dashing lieutenant of the Seventh Cavalry,
immortalized by Custer and honored by a whole army.
Twenty years ago Edward Busick was assigned as a private to G Troop
of the Seventh, stationed at Fort Apache, Arizona. At that time G was
officially lacking a captain, so a certain young lieutenant was acting
commander, and for his orderly he chose one Trooper Busick.
One evening, a year later, the lieutenant received sudden orders to
report immediately to a staff post. All that night his orderly worked
with him packing his personal belongings and helping him get ready for
an early-morning start. It was a long job, and a hard one, but the
orderly didn’t mind the work in the least; all he cared about was the
loss of his troop commander.
“Don’t suppose I’ll ever see you again, Busick, but if I do, and
there’s anything I can do for you, I’ll be glad to do it,” the
lieutenant told him when the job was finished and the last box had been
nailed down.
It wasn’t very much for a lieutenant to say to his orderly, but it
meant a great deal to this trim young trooper. Somehow, in the old
Army, orderlies get to thinking a great deal of their officers and
Busick happened to be just that particular kind. He had an especially
good memory, too.
The whirligig of fate that seems to have so much to do with Army
affairs sent the lieutenant to the Philippines, where, as colonel of
the suicide regiment, he won everlasting honor for his regiment and a
Congressional medal for valor for himself. Then on up he jumped until
his shoulder-straps bore the single star of a brigadier. Then another
star was added, and he became chief of staff and ranking officer in the
whole Army.
And all the while the whirligig that looks after enlisted men saw to it
that Trooper Busick added other colored bars to his service ribbons.
And slowly he added pounds to his slim girth and a wife and children
to his fireside. But as a heavy girth and a family aren’t exactly
synonymous with dashing cavalrymen, Sergeant Busick saw to it that
he was transferred from the roving cavalry to the stationary Coast
Artillery. And through all the years he remembered the lieutenant and
his promise that if he ever wanted anything he would try to get it for
him.
One month ago Sergeant Busick got a furlough from his Coast Artillery
company at Fort McKinley, Portland, Me., and bought a ticket to Camp
Upton, New York. There were only a few men here then, so he didn’t have
any great difficulty in seeing his old first lieutenant.
For half a minute or so General Bell, commanding officer of the
Seventy-seventh Division of the National Army and one-time first
lieutenant of the Seventh Cavalry, didn’t recognize his old orderly—but
it was for only half a minute.
“You’ll sleep in our quarters with us tonight,” General Bell ordered.
“Tomorrow we’ll see about that old promise.”
So that night Sergeant Busick had the room between Major-General Bell’s
and Brigadier-General Read’s. But sleeping next to generals was pretty
strong for an ordinary sergeant and he didn’t accept General Bell’s
invitation to have mess with him.
And a little later Busick told his old commander that the big
request that he had come across the continent to make was that he be
transferred to the Seventy-seventh division and allowed to serve under
the General. But army tape is still long and red, so all that the
General could do was to send the sergeant back to his post and promise
that he would do all that he could. This, it proved, was sufficient.
For Sergeant Edward Busick, smiling and happy with his reassignment
papers safely tucked away in the pocket of his blouse under his half a
foot of service ribbons, came back to report for duty. It took twenty
years to do—but he’s done it.
And the National Army of Freedom hasn’t any idea as yet how much
richer in real soldier talent and color it is today. But a certain old
campaigner, who used to be a first lieutenant of cavalry, knows.