Dennis

You know for weakend people who get any respiratory disease like a bad cold it can easily turn into pneumonia. I can see some flu or something sweeping through the camp and weakened men dying form complications like pneumonia. When I got back from Nam I immediately caught some of what the army called acute respiratory disease (ARD) and ended up in hospital for three weeks. I was not undernourished or living in squalid conditions at Ft. Lenardwood, but I got sick just the same just being in contact with many other soldiers. That God for antibiotics and modern cough med. The sick bay I was in sounded like a civil war camp at dawn with hacking and coughing to wake the dead. I feel for these soldiers on both sides living in these miserable conditions with no end in sight except death. Even my father in WW11 was so dirty and lived in such awful conditions he got a skin disease and actually got a disability for it. I don't think he changed cloths or took a bath for 6 months. How much worse for our ancestors eating whatever they could find for the pot, including dog, while going barefoot and dressed in rags. Also these guys marched up to 20 miles a day. How did they do it? Stonewall's foot Cav. marched up to 30 miles a day. Just imagine walking 30 miles in wool uniform carrying your rifle and your rations. At the end of a march is a battle to fight. How many dropped along the way and just died?

John