Sergeant Joe L. Skelton of the 13th Aero Squadron at Garden City, R. I., a former student in the University of Oregon school of journalism, writes as follows:
“I left Eugene last April and went to Vancouver Barracks where I enlisted in the aviation section of the signal corps. From there we were sent to Camp Kelly at South San Antonio, Texas. I guess that is the worst place in the United States. It was hot and we had drill, squads right, squads left and to the rear march stuff until we got tired of it. Then we didn’t get enough to eat and it was dusty and the wind blew the whole state of Texas back and forth through that camp every day and about the time a fellow would get a few army beans in his mess kit a whirlwind would come along and fill it full of dust. The country was full of rattlesnakes, tarantulas, horned toads, lizards and Mexicans, and we were sure glad when we left there the 5th of July for Dayton, Ohio. Our company was made the 13th Aero Squadron, and was the first to leave the field.
“We went to the new Wilbur Wright field at Dayton, where we had nice barracks. We got busy assembling planes and keeping them in flying condition. There is a crew in charge of each plane. The crew chief is responsible for the plane and under him he has a motor man and several other helpers. I started as motorman and worked up to crew chief and a sergeant. It was in Dayton that I spent quite a while in the air. The longest trip I had was from the field to Cincinnati and back. On that trip we were in the air about two hours and a half.
“A little more than a month ago we left there and came to the field at Garden City, R. I., which is a second unit to the flying field at Mincola and just across the road from Camp Mills.
“This is the jumping off place and now we’re waiting for orders to go across. And the way things look right now, we ’re liable to go aboard a transport most any time.”
The medical corps of the United States army has attracted three Oregon newspaper men who are now encamped at Camp Lewis, American Lake, Washington, the site of the Ninty-First division of the National army. They are Earl R. Goodwin, formerly sports writer for the Morning Oregonian, who is a member of Field Hospital B; Percy A. Boatman, a sergeant in the 361st Ambulance company, and Forrest Peil, a private in the latter company. Boatman wrote considerably for the Oregon Emerald, the student publication at the University of Oregon, and for papers in Spokane, Washington, his home town. Peil formerly was city editor of the Evening Herald at Klamath Falls, Oregon, and later reporter on the Morning Register of Eugene.
These men, all of them in their early twenties, should not be classed with the drafted men in the National army because they are stationed at Camp Lewis. They volunteered for service last spring when the field hospital company was formed at Portland and the ambulance company at Eugene with volunteers. Their companies are attached to the 91st division, which is
