DIY History | Transcribe | World War I Diaries and Letters | Robert Morriss Browning correspondence to Mabel C. Williams, May-July 1917 | 1917-05-21 Robert M. Browning to Miss Mabel Williams Page 2

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Robert Morriss Browning correspondence to Mabel C. Williams, May-July 1917

1917-05-21 Robert M. Browning to Miss Mabel Williams Page 2

scores of husky young men trembling out of their shoes and lining up for the big ordeal. They took us in bunches of ten or fifteen at a time and shot us right through. Of course we went in single file and each doctor tested each of us for some particular thing. The vision test was the only one that was as stiff as the one I got at Iowa City. The surgeon here gave me a score of 20-70 on my bum eye, which is the lower threshold, I understand. He asked me a few questions and finally handed me a "Passed by Medical Examiner". Then we marched over to the Q. M. Department and got our uniforms. After mess we got our little armfuls of typhoid serum, assembled our equipment and signed up for it, were mustered in at retreat. Then after mess we went down to St. Paul after our baggage. We were all pretty kind to our left arms that night but by Monday afternoon most of us were feeling fit again. We get another armful apiece day after tomorrow and then we have our third shot and smallpox vaccine to look forward to.
Our schedule is scientifically worked out so as to alternate mental and physical strain, and it certainly is intensive. We are effected, "in our many leisure hours", as Crockett puts it, to learn the drill regulations verbatim, to acquire

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scores of husky young men trembling out of their shoes and lining up for the big ordeal. They took us in bunches of ten or fifteen at a time and shot us right through. Of course we went in single file and each doctor tested each of us for some particular thing. The vision test was the only one that was as stiff as the one I got at Iowa City. The surgeon here gave me a score of 20-70 on my bum eye, which is the lower threshold, I understand. He asked me a few questions and finally handed me a "Passed by Medical Examiner". Then we marched over to the Q. M. Department and got our uniforms. After mess we got our little armfuls of typhoid serum, assembled our equipment and signed up for it, were mustered in at retreat. Then after mess we went down to St. Paul after our baggage. We were all pretty kind to our left arms that night but by Monday afternoon most of us were feeling fit again. We get another armful apiece day after tomorrow and then we have our third shot and smallpox vaccine to look forward to. Our schedule is scientifically worked out so as to alternate mental and physical strain, and it certainly is intensive. We are effected, "in our many leisure hours", as Crockett puts it, to learn the drill regulations verbatim, to acquire