MARINES
"They tell me," said a young marine in his best confidential and earnest
manner, "that the Kaiser isn't afraid of the American army, but that he
is afraid of the marines."
The youngster was hazy as to the source of his information, but he never
doubted that it was accurate. He felt sure that the Kaiser had heard of
the marines. Weren't they "first to fight"? And if he didn't fear them
yet, he would. At least he would when Company D got into action.
No unit in the American army today has the group consciousness of the
marines. It is difficult to understand just how this has happened.
Everybody knows that once a regiment, or a division, or even an army,
has acquired a tradition, that tradition will live long after every man
who established it has gone. There is, for instance, the Foreign Legion
of the French army. Thousands and thousands of men have poured through
this organization. Sickness and shrapnel, the exigencies of the service
and what not have swept the veterans away again and again, but it is
still the Foreign Legion. Some of its new recruits will be negro
horseboys who have missed their ships at one of the ports through
overprotracted sprees; there will be a gentleman adventurer or two, and
a fine collection of assorted ruffians. But in a month each will be a
legionary.
I saw an American negro in a village of France who had been a legionary
until a wound had stiffened a knee too much to permit him to engage in
further service. He was a shambling, shuffling, whining, servile negro,
abjectly sure that some kind white gentleman would give him a pair of
shoes, or at least a couple of francs. But he had the Croix de Guerre
and the Medaille Militaire. He had not cringed while he was a legionary.
The tradition of this organization, however, is based on battle service.
The Legion has seen all the hardest fighting. The tradition of our
marines rests on something else. They have seen service, of course, but
it has not been considerable. Their group feeling was at first sheerly
defensive. There was a time when the marine was a friend of no one in
the service. He was neither soldier nor sailor. Many of the marine
officers were men who had been unable to get appointments at West Point
or Annapolis, or, having done so, had failed to hold the pace at the
academies. And so the spirit of the officers and the men was that they
would show the army and the navy of just what stuff a marine was made.
And they have. It is true that the army and the navy have ceased long
since to look down upon the marine, but the pressure of handicap has
been maintained among the marines in France just the same.
It is largely accidental. For instance, when the American troops were
first billeted in the training area the marines were placed at the upper
end of the triangle miles further from the field of divisional maneuvers
than any of their comrades. And so, if Joffre, or Pétain, or
Clemenceau, or Poincaré, or any of the others came to review the first
American expeditionary unit, the marines had to march twenty-two miles
in a day in addition to the ground which they would cover in the review.
Curiously enough, this did not inspire them with a hatred of the
reviews, nor did they complain of their lot. They merely took the
attitude that a few miles more or less made no difference to a marine.
I remember a story a young officer told me about his first hike with the
marines in France. They had eleven miles to do in the morning and as
many more in the afternoon, after a brief review. The young officer
appeared with a pair of light shoes with a flexible sole.
"Look here," said the major, "you'd better put on heavier shoes."
"I think these will suffice, sir," said the young lieutenant. "You see,
they're modeled on the principle of an Indian moccasin--full freedom for
the foot, you know."
The major grinned. "Come around and see me this evening," he said, "and
tell me what you think of the Indians." The man with the moccasin style
shoe did well enough until the company was in sight of the home village.
Unfortunately, a halt was called at a point where a brook ran close to
the road.
The sight of the cool stream made the lieutenant's feet burn and ache
worse than ever. "I had just about made up my mind to turn my men over
to the sergeant and limp home, after a crack at the brook," said the
lieutenant, "when I heard one of the men say that he was tired. There
was an old sergeant on him like a flash. He was one of the oldest men in
the regiment. He had never voted the prohibition ticket and rheumatism
was only one of his ailments, but he hopped right on the kid who said he
was tired. 'Where do you get off to be a marine?' he said. 'Why, we
don't call a hike like this marching in the marines. Look here.' And the
old fellow did a series of jig steps to show that the march was nothing
to him.
"Well," said the young officer, "I didn't turn the men over to the
sergeant and I didn't bathe my feet in the brook. I marched in ahead of
them. You see, I thought to myself, I guess my feet will drop off all
right before I get there, but I can't very well stop. After all, I'm a
marine."
Even the Germans did their best to make the marines feel that they were
troops apart from the others. Only one raid was attempted during the
summer and then it was the village of the marines upon which a bomb was
dropped. It injured no one and did ever so much to increase the pride of
marines, who would remark to less fortunate organizations in the
training area: "What do you know about aeroplanes?"
When it came time to dig practice trenches, other regiments were content
to put in the better part of the morning and afternoon upon the work,
but the marines went to the task of digging in day and night shifts.
There was a Sunday upon which Pershing announced that he would inspect
the American troops in their billets. Through some mistake or other he
arrived in the camp of the marines eight hours behind schedule, but the
men were still standing under arms without a sign of weariness when he
arrived. Historical tradition lent itself to maintaining the morale of
the marines, for their village was once the site of a famous Roman camp
and one of the men in digging a trench one day came across a segment of
green metal that the marines assert roundly was part of a Roman sword.
In a year or two it will be sure to be identified as Cæsar's.
The marines were exclusive and original even in the matter of mascots.
The doughboys had dogs and cats and a rather mangy lion for pets but no
other fighting organization in the world has an anteater. The marines
picked Jimmy up at Vera Cruz and he began to prove his worth as a mascot
immediately. He was with them when the city was taken. Later he stopped
off at Hayti and aided in subduing the rebels. He is said to be the only
anteater who has been through two campaigns. Army life has broadened
Jimmy. He has learned to eat hardtack and frogs and cornbeef and pie and
beetles and slum and omelettes. As a matter of fact Jimmy will eat
almost anything but ants. Of course he wouldn't refuse some tempting
morsel simply because of the presence of ants, but he no longer finds
any satisfaction in making an entire meal of the pesky insects. He won't
forage for them. Things like hardtack and pie, Jimmy finds, will stand
still and give a hungry man a chance. Lack of practice has somewhat
impaired the speed of Jimmy and even if he wanted to revert to type it
is probable that he could catch nothing but the older and less edible
ants. Of course he does not want to go back to an ant diet. He feels
that it would be a reflection on the hospitality of his friends, the
marines.
The marines are equally tactful. In spite of his decline as an
entomologist Jimmy remains by courtesy an anteater and is always so
termed when exhibited to visitors. He has two tricks. He will squeal if
his tail is pulled ever so gently and he will demolish and put out
burning cigars or cigarettes. The latter trick is his favorite. He
stamps out the glowing tobacco with his forepaws and tears the cigar or
cigarette to pieces. The stunt is no longer universally popular. The
marine who dropped a hundred franc note by mistake just in front of
Jimmy says that teaching tricks to anteaters is all foolishness.
However, Jimmy has picked up a few stunts on his own account. It is not
thought probable that any marine ever encouraged him in his habit of
biting enlisted men of the regular army and reserve officers. There is a
belief that Jimmy works on broad general principles, and many marines
fear that they will no longer be immune from his teeth if the
distinctive forest green of their organization is abandoned for the
conventional khaki of the rest of the army.
Some little time before the American troops first went into the
trenches, the marines were scattered into small detachments for police
duty. Many of them have since been brought together again. There is, of
course, a good deal of stuff and nonsense in stories about soldiers
saying, "We want to get a crack at them," and all that, but it is
literally and exactly true that the marines, both officers and men, were
deeply disappointed when they could not go to the front with the others.
Their professional pride was hurt.
Still they did not whine, but went about their traditional police work
with vigor. I was in a base hospital one day when a doughboy came in all
gory about the head. "What happened to you?" a doctor asked. "A marine
told me to button up my overcoat," said the doughboy, "and I started to
argue with him."
There are not many American army songs yet, but the marines did not wait
until the war for theirs. Most of it I have forgotten, but one of the
stunning couplets of the chorus is:
If the army or the navy ever gaze on heaven's scenes
They will find the streets are guarded by United States Marines.