Author: Robrt Kuniegel
Last saved by: Robert Kuniegel
Company: Hair at 731

Topic 57 
FONDNESS FOR THE KHAKI LAD

JACK, I understand some of Pershing's wounded are here.  I must see them."

Wherever there were men from overseas — and in the early days of the war these were almost invariably wounded or gassed — Colonel Roosevelt wanted to meet them.  If they were on hand when he arrived, so much the better.  If they were not, he would ask the local committee where they were to be seen.

On trains and in other public places he would always stop to greet them, and ask of their experiences, their commands, and how they were getting along.  They were welcome, too, at Sagamore Hill.  After the establishment of the great camps on Long Island he was at home to the "rookies" on Saturdays, and after a while a reception for them was a fixed feast each week.  For them there would be refreshments, he had something to say to each of them, and glad to show all the famous "trophy room."

Bluejackets, too, were as welcome as the men of the other arm of the service.  The marvel of those meetings was the number of mutual acquaintances the Colonel and soldiers and sailors would discover.

"Colonel," a lad would say, "I am from Blank.  John Smith there says to remember him to you."
"That's splendid! Tell him I am very glad to hear from him.  How did he ever come out with that mine of his?"

Or it might be a request to be remembered to the village doctor or judge.  He knew somebody in nearly every place they would mention.

In Detroit a veteran boatswain, recalled from retirement to assist in recruiting, hailed the Colonel.

"I'm mighty glad to see you again," exclaimed T.  R.  " Let me see, the last time I saw you, you were on top of a turret on a ship in Italian waters — you and two others.  I'll have your name in a moment — is n't it Johnson?"

"Yes, sir," said the proud sailor, swelling his chest a bit, " I was a bosun then."

Johnson, by the way, was a navy character, known in the seven seas as "Steamboat" Johnson.

"Steamboat Johnson — that bosun — is tickled to death at your remembering him," I said to the Colonel afterward.

''That's it, 'Steamboat,' I knew he had some such outlandish moniker, as they might say in our beloved New York.  That helped me recall him.  I remember an officer explaining that he had amazing skill in handling steam launches; could do as much with one as most good seamen could with a fair-sized tug.  He's a good sample of the old time navy man.  I believe he's more than half glad of this war

—	it keeps him in the service."

Once I spoke of the Saturday receptions at Sagamore Hill as a nice thing.

"I'm glad to hear you say that," he answered.  " I rather believe the boys enjoy it.  I know I do.  I 'm glad to have them come, and the obligation is all mine.  If I can extend them any little courtesy I am glad to do it.  It is no more than I would thank another man for doing for my boys.  Mrs.  Roosevelt feels about it just as I do — she's glad to have them come.

"They won't let me go to war, but they cannot prevent my admiring those who are privileged to go that, and minding the grandchildren."

The grandchildren frequently took part in these festivities.  Once little "Dick" Derby, baby son of the Colonel's younger daughter, Ethel, came out, and espying a flag proceeded to salute the colors in true man-of-wars man style.  A group of blue jackets present applauded.

"We start them young out here," said the delighted Colonel.

It was on this occasion that the Colonel, showing his visitors through the " trophy room," called attention to an enormous pair of elephant tusks, said to be the largest in the world.

"Those," said he, "were presented to me by the one man in the world fully satisfied with his ancestry."
"Might I ask, sir," said a bluejacket, "who he might be?"

"King Menelek of Abyssinia.  You know he is said to have descended from King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba."

The Colonel was in an especially jovial mood this particular afternoon, venturing to make what he seldom did — a pun — in showing a book Kaiser Wilhelm, in happier days, had sent him.

"You see, gentlemen," said the Colonel, pointing to a grammatical error in the inscription, "the Kaiser did not know his English very well even then."

Wilhelm had used "to" where he should have spelled it "too."