It happened on the target-range, one sweltering August day during a lull in the firing, while the men were lounging comfortably in rear of the firing-points. Green, with all of the maternal care of the true “dope-shooter,” was puttering with his rifle, wiping off a microscopic particle of dust here, touching it up with an oiled rag there, testing the trigger pull for a drag that he knew did not exist, inspecting it generally from muzzle to butt, and petting it much after the manner of a mother with her babe.
“I heard you was at the ball last night, Green,” one of the men remarked between puffs of a hand-made cigarette.
ex “The Shame of the Uniform,” by Captain M. B. Stewart, U.S. Army. Illustrations by Gordon Grant. in Harper’s Weekly (May 24, 1913) : 12-13
U Michigan copy/scan (via hathitrust) : link
archive.org : link
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The article concerns respect (immediately after some great military victory) shown to men in uniform, soon enough giving way to humiliating treatment of those same men. Regarding the uniform, as Green asks : “If it’s good enough to die in, why ain’t it good enough to dance in?”
Merch Bradt Stewart (1875-1934),
writer, educator, army officer (Platte River, Cuba, Philippines, Panama Canal Zone, France; various staff positions mainly related to infantry and training)
wikipedia : link
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