By 6:40 a. m. the men have reached the drill ground on the open fields above the village and are ready to begin the eight or nine hours of hard work and exercise that is before them.  Half of each day is spent with the French troops, learning more quickly with an object lesson before them, and the remaining half day is spent in training by themselves.  The French squad goes through the drill or movement; then the American battalion, after watching them, is put through the same practice.  They are trained in bayonet work and charges, in musketry and machine gun practice, in the handling of grenades, and the throwing of bombs.  There is evidence of speeding up and an apparent pressure to get them quickly into shape, in order to take their place in the trenches before the winter sets in.  A few weeks at the front with the French troops will soon give them experience, and after a winter in the trenches, the men of these first divisions will doubtless form the nucleus for a large American army, and provide the drill masters quickly to train the men for the spring offensive.

On the day we were there, after a hard morning’s drill, the Colonel assembled three battalions and put them through the first regimental formation and the first regimental review since landing in France.  The men of the First, Second, and Third battalions marched by, and one could quickly contrast the disciplined movements of the veterans or old soldiers with the crude drill of the new recruits, some of whom could not keep step or smoothly execute the movements.

At the noon hour, after the men had taken their midday meal and had rested for a few minutes, the Colonel asked us if we would address the troops.  Some two thousand men were marched in close formation around the large military wagon on which we were to stand.  The mules were unhitched and the men seated themselves on the grass, while the band played several pieces.  A great hunger of heart possesses any man with half a soul as he looks into the faces of these boys, beset by fierce temptations and facing a terrible winter in the trenches.  At the beginning we reminded them of the words of Lord Kitchener to his troops before they left for France:  “You are ordered abroad as a soldier. . .  Remember that the honor of the Army depends upon your individual conduct. . .  Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound.  So keep constantly on your guard against any excesses.  In this new experience you may find temptations both in wine and women.  You must entirely resist both temptations, . . . treating all women with perfect courtesy.” [2] Kitchener’s words furnish a text for the two-fold danger which confronts these men.  Here for an unhurried hour, with the generous backing of the officers, we plead with the men on military, medical, and moral grounds, for the sake of their own homes and families, for the sake of conscience and country, on the grounds of duty both to God and to man, to hold to the high ideals and the best traditions of the homeland.  Here, with no church save the great dome of God’s blue heaven above us, seated on the green grass, under the warm summer sun, we have the priceless privilege of trying to safeguard the life of these men in the grave danger of wartime.