MEMORIES OF SUPPLY COMPANY
 
     Behind the fighting front stretches another battle line that 
reaches from those perilous posts of freedom to the bases of 
supplies. About it there is no glamor of stirring spectacle, no sense 
of actual combat.  Yet day and night and with ceaseless and heroic 
endeavor it feeds and supplies the battling hosts.
     "It is easier to have an emotion about a forlorn hope led to 
victory than about a food supply column that reached the line under a 
storm of shrapnel. Yet the courage of the teamsters who faced death 
with only the reins in their hands is full mate to the valor of the 
fighting men armed with rifles."  
                      - Isaac F. Marcosson, in Saturday Evening Post.

     Not the least of the surprises presented to the world in the 
great way was the wonderful system of supply. Fighting units sprang 
up over night with veteran efficiency, while with equal swiftness and 
far-reaching methods of supplying these same units came the Supply 
Companies. Knotty problems of handicapped transportation had to be 
overcome and each day presented its feature of the work that had to 
be planned and figured and estimated.
     The inclination is to accept supplies without comment or thought 
of the various degrees by which they reached the recipient. A 
wonderful and efficient route brought the supplies from the shores of 
America to France and to us on the fighting front. It was a gigantic 
chain depending upon its various units for strength.
     All the careful plans of transportation, all the safeguards, all 
the rights-of-way and all the labor incidental to the manufacture and 
delivery is as naught unless the last link of the mammoth supply 
chain, the Supply Company of each fighting unit, be efficient.
     Our work is to take these supplies and deliver them at all 
hazards to the organizations who depend upon us for their food, their 
clothing, their armament and means of transportation. Animals must be 
fed and replaced, if necessary. With what success we accomplished 
this can be imagined from a review of the brilliant successes of the 
Regiment itself, to which we contributed in no small measure.
     To our lot fell the situation of being fired upon and our men 
killed and wounded without the satisfaction of a direct retaliatory 
measure. Indirectly we were as responsible for the firing of the 
pieces as though we actually pulled the lanyards; but the 
satisfaction of sending a hail of shot and shell screeching into the 
enemy's lines, with the realization that revenge and destruction 
followed in its wake, was not for us.
     The enthusiasm of conflict and glory of advance meant to us only 
more problems of how to keep the channels of supply open to permit of 
further advances. Blocked roads, lack of sufficient men and animals 
were all problems difficult of solution.
     When it is considered that food and clothing, fuel and forage, 
horses and equipment of all kinds must be furnished by the Supply 
Company, as well as the operation of twenty-three escort wagons 
(four-line), sixteen water and ration carts and eight kitchens, some 
idea of the importance of this unit's work may be gained. Not only 
are we called upon to supply, however, nothing lasts forever; there 
is a ceaseless round of salvaging and re-equiping.
     Our work is never done. The necessity of keeping the Regiment 
supplied is endless and under all conditions and circumstances, 
whether at peace or at war, must supplies be kept moving.

(Typed by LINDA FLUHARTY.)