Patterson, later killed in action, was the enlisted man, and the institution was Base Hospital No. 2.

Colonel Roosevelt, who was in the hospital convalescing from a wound in his knee caused by a machine gun bullet, told me the story and said it was the first time that he had heard the subject of a veterans' association mentioned, although he had thought of it frequently himself as an organization with boundless possibilities for good. He found later that it was being very generally discussed by men in Base Hospital No. 2, particularly those who were so badly wounded that they could not be sent to the front again and who knew they must further serve their country along peaceful lines at home.

This was during war time, remember!

Then came the armistice!

When our victorious armies were wending their way towards the Rhine, when men of the navy and the marine corps realized that peace had come and that home was again within reach, this thought of a veterans' band, which had slumbered far back in the subconscious thoughts of all of them, burst into objectivity. An association of some sort was widely discussed not only by the men but by the officers as well. But how could even the start of it be begun? Those who considered the project most seriously were confronted with a difficulty

which seemed at first to be almost insurmountable: that was the difficulty of assembling at one time and in one place a gathering which might at least approximately represent the whole army, navy, marine corps, or even the A. E. F.

This difficulty tended to narrow what is believed to have been the wish of everyone when he first thought of the matter, that is the hope that it would be another Grand Army of the Republic, another United Confederate Veterans, but greater than either because representative of a United Country. Talk started then about all sorts of imagined and fancied veteran organizations. Some advocated an officers' association. This was believed to be possible because officers had more freedom and more financial ability to attend a convention. Others thought the enlisted men should perfect organizations by regiments first, then divisions, and finally form one great united body.

The present leaders in the movement have since said that they realized that all of these schemes must come to naught because no organization except one on the broadest possible lines could be effective. They believed that all officers and men of the three branches of the service and all enlisted women, whether they served at home or abroad, should be eligible and urged to join one thoroughly democratic and comprehensive organization. They

knew that any organization leaving out one or more elements composing the military service of the United States would be forced to compete constantly with the organization or association so discarded. In short, they knew that in union there is strength. And they believed, and still believe, that the problems of peace after a catastrophe such as was never before witnessed in history are so grave that they can be met with safety only by a national bulwark composed of the men who won the war, so closely knit, so tightly welded together in a common organization for the common good of all that no power of external or internal evil or aggression, no matter how allied or augmented, could hope even so much as to threaten our national existence, ambitions, aspirations, and pursuit of happiness, much less aim to destroy them.

Don't forget that the leaders of the movement realized all this, and also remember that they include among their number the enlisted man of the A. E. F. and home army and the sailor in a shore station and on board a destroyer. The realization may not have been in so many words, but each knew he wanted to "make the world safe for democracy"-he had fought to do that and had thought out carefully what it meant, that is, that it didn't mean anything selfish-and each knew enough of the principle of union and strength to

embrace the idea when "organize" first began to be mentioned.

But how to do it, that was the problem.

Then kind Fate in the shape of G. H. Q. came to the rescue with what proved to be the solution.

G. H. Q. didn't mean to find the solution. There had been a deal of dissatisfaction with the way certain things were going in the A. E. F. and on February 15, 1919, twenty National Guard and Reserve officers serving in the A. E. F., representing the S. O. S., ten infantry divisions, and several other organizations, were ordered to report in Paris. The purpose of this gathering was to have these officers confer with certain others of the Regular Army, including the heads of train supply and Intelligence Sections of the General Staff of G. H. Q., in regard to the betterment of conditions and development of contentment in the army in France.

Included in this number were Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., of the First Division, Lieutenant Colonel Franklin D'Olier of the S. O. S., and Lieutenant Colonel Eric Fisher Wood of the 88th Division. All of these officers have since told me that when they left their divisions they were distinctively permeated with the desire to form a veterans' organization of some comprehensive kind. When they got to Paris they immediately

went into conference with the other officers on the questions involved in their official trip, details of which do not concern this story.

What is important is the fact that Colonel Roosevelt, Colonel D'Olier, and Colonel Wood each discovered that all of the officers in this representative gathering shared with the. thousands of other soldiers of the American forces the hope and desire that the officers and men who were about to return to civilian life,) after serving in the great war, whether at home or with the combat units or in the S. O. S., might sooner or later be united into one permanent national organization, similar in certain respects to the Grand Army of the Republic or the United Confederate Veterans and composed of all parties, all creeds, and all ranks, who wished to perpetuate American ideals and the relationship formed while in the military and national service.

When these officers realized what each was thinking they promptly set about with the "let's go" spirit of the A. E. F. to avail themselves of a God-given opportunity. A dinner was spread in the Allied Officers' Club, Rue Faubourg St. Honoré, on the night of February 16th and covers were laid for the following:

Lt. Col. Francis R. Appleton, Jr.,

Lt. Col. G. Edward Buxton,

2d Army.
82d Div.

Lt. Col. Bennett C. Clark, ex 35th Div., now with 88th Div.