Page:Armistice Day.djvu/151

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HOW AMERICA FINISHED
129

of our Expeditionary Force in France reflected the spirit of the whole American Army in its battle with the Boche.

"Get it done" "Get a decision"—that has been the feeling of all from doughboys to generals. Motoring up the hard, even road from General Headquarters to the front on one of the last days of the war, I saw the manifestation of that feeling everywhere. Trucks bowled along, loaded with everything that an army needs—shells, blankets, flour, tobacco, fodder, chewing-gum, matches, drainpipes, safety razors. They were driven at a pace which made the French peasants gasp, but they were driven surely. Along the way railways, hospitals, power-house, and steam-rollers, put there by the Americans, were functioning at top speed, but securely. Much haste, no waste.

The country for miles and miles behind the front was just one vast camp—the camp of the Americans, who brought it all across the ocean, with them, from can openers to locomotives. It is indescribable, the impression of the vastness of the power of America which a trip through this great deposit of men and material gives you. Never has there been a feat in history like the delivery of this great blow at such long range.

It was football weather, Indian summer. And the men and girls who had come down on the