[SPEMack618]

Finally, the small box on the secretary’s desk buzzed. There was a brief muffled conversation that Landis couldn’t hear, his hearing being degraded through his twenty years of having a .30-06 go off by his head regularly. The secretary turned to Landis and smiled and simply waved her hand in the general direction of the door. Landis stood, retrieved his hat and walked on in. The small man seated behind the desk looked slightly flustered, whether from the heat or the amount of work on his desk wasn’t immediately clear to Landis. However, there was something vaguely familiar about the man.
“Sergeant Landis, glad you could spare a minute for your old platoon leader…..”

Argonne Forest, France, 1917
Private First Class Calvin Landis nervously opened the bolt just a hair on his M-1903, and ensured that there was a round in the chamber and that the magazine cutoff was in the off position. Despite, the lectures from his father, who had rode up Kettle Hill, Landis saw the value in a magazine and figure he could put in a five round stripper clip just as easily as he could load one round at a time. The .30 Caliber Government cartridge of 1906 was an “okay” round to Landis, and he had shot fairly well with it out to 400 yards in National Guard summer camp, so that wasn’t an issue, however his worry, and this was a genuine worry brought about by having been around the small pre-war Regular Army, and not the mainly conscript formed National Army which he was currently assigned too, was his platoon leader. Second Lieutenant Oswald Grant III was fresh out of Beta Theta Pi, college and officer training. It wasn’t that the man was a bad officer; in fact, Landis was genuinely impressed with the skill in which the man had moved the platoon towards the front and their preparation for going “over the top.” However, what irked Landis, and he had so to one of his squad mates, was that he just couldn’t trust a man who went into battle wearing a long coat and carrying nothing more than a pistol and a whistle. It looked as if the man were more concerned with getting into the bloomer of some Alpha Delta Pi at the spring hop than killing Huns. Now, Captain Dillard, that old coot was a fighting man’s officer. Granted, Landis had to remind himself, the man was a First Sergeant from the Georgia Militia who would probably lose his bars as soon as the Huns realized what was good for them, but until, the scarred old sergeant at least looked the part, and hell, the man carried a Winchester ’97 with a bayonet on it and an old Single Action Army,.
Captain Eli James Dillard, National Army, (1st/Sgt Georgia State Militia), scowled around his pipe in a vague show of disgust. That college boy Oswald had merrily helped him read the operations order and almost seemed excited at the prospect of the coming offensive.
“Well, Captain, it looks as if the French are ready to permanently evict the Hessian menace from their soil.” He had said, his boyish face beaming at the idea of as he put it “finally embarking on the great crusade to rid the world of the specter of war.” Dillard, who while not a fool, didn’t read his letters too well, was too prideful to ask what the hell all that meant, but all he knew was that when he gave the order to prepare his platoon for the attack, Oswald had saluted sharply, said: “Well then sir, we shall indeed give it the old college try.” The boy officer then about faced and marched off to his platoon, leaving Dillard alone with his thoughts.
Landis nervously checked the chamber on his Springfield one last time as the Lieutenant walked by telling everyone to make ready and wishing them “Godspeed men. Let’s do what we came here for.” Landis chuckled and wondered what his dad would make of a man who looked more at home on a foxhunt than a battlefield.