Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/246

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216
Jack Heaton

and rifle practise on the target range, in fact just as we were beginning to consider ourselves old cavalrymen, we were given a sudden jolt by being told that no more cavalry would be sent overseas and that we would be changed to light field artillery. Now there are a couple of lines in an old army song that run like this:

“The Infantry for bravery,
The Artillery for slavery.”


We were a badly disappointed crew, but a good soldier is one who obeys orders no matter how tough they are and we were good soldiers. In due course of time we were shipped to West Point, Kentucky, where we were to receive our artillery training in seventy-two days and then go overseas.

Because I had been a wireless, or radio, operator as it is now more often called, and because wireless is an important part of artillery I was immediately picked to go to the radio-school. I laughed at the idea of my going to radio-school. What’s the use when I am already an expert operator and had been in the Navy? But I found out there were still a few things I could learn about wireless.