Trials of a Staff-Officer (e-book) (used book) | bookbook.eu

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Excerpt from Trials of a Staff-Officer
Odd experiences fall to the lot of every soldier. Even the subaltern who has spent the quarter of a century since the great surrender in plodding around after a platoon - and such has been the stagnation of promotion that the case is by no means imaginary - can tell of queer times in the reconstruction days; of cheerful badinage with mobs of women in the Brooklyn "Whisky War" when the troops were sent down to help the marshals break up illicit distilleries; of rural hospitalities as they tramped through Pennsylvania during the big strike of '77; of perilous days on the Indian frontier; even of out-of-the-way sensations in out-of-the-way garrisons; but, take it all in all, a junior in the line is apt to find life more or less monotonous. To break this he might well be tempted to try other duty; but it is certain that, were it all to be done over again with the view of seeking the path wherein life might be most placidly enjoyed, nothing would tempt the present writer to quit the shelter of his tactical two yards from the rear rank for any staff position, unaccompanied by rank and emolument, the army could offer.