2. 
For  once  I  was  right.  Soon  after,  I  was  sent  back  here  which 
is  the  headquarters,  and  have  been  endeavoring  to  sustain  the 
high  sounding  title  of  "Coast  Defense  Personnel  Adjutant"  and 
both  the  job  as  well  as  the  name  are  big  mouiiMfmll.  No  sooner 
had  1  arriaved  thaA  several  other  offices  were  wished  upon  me 
but  -I  showed  my  order  "for  personnel  work  only"  and  the  powers 
that  be  had  to  back  down. 
The  personnel  office  was  originaly  intended  ^  be  a  place 
where  all  the  records  of  men  were  kept  and  made.  Each  man  has 
a  qualification  ca,rd  showing  what  his  industrial  or  commercial 
knowledge  is  and  it  was  intended  to  have  our  regiments  made  up  in 
the  personnel  offxve  according  to  the  needs  of  occupations.  That 
is,  so  many  raachinists,  carpenters,  clerks,  etc,  instead  of 
wasting  a  lot  of  good  material  by  using  clerks  for  gunners  and 
teamsters  and  vice  versa. 
There  was  no  personnel  office  when  I  came  here  and  no  room 
for  it.  I  had  to  find  a  place  in  a  small  room  with  an  enormous 
safe  and  a  lot  of  filing  cabinets.  It  was  so  small  that  when  there 
where  three  men  in  the  room, one  had  to  go  out  before  another 
could  come  in.  I  this  place  we  labored  for  a  month  until  the 
other  officers  fuund  out  that  the  personnel  office  was  a  handy 
place  to  have  their  paper  work  dune  and  we  were  flooded  with 
work  that  we  had  to  do.  Then  I  got  an  officers  house  for  an 
office  and  we  have  done  better. 
The  work  has  been  very  interesting  although  it  may  not  sound 
so  and,  in  my  opinion,  is  very  important.  We  had  charge  of  111 
the  soldiers  applications  for  allotments  and  insurance  and^seems 
to  have  become  the  place  where  all  troublesome  matters  find  a 
lodgement  and  have  to  be  settled.  "Passing  the  buck"  is  the  favor¬ 
ite  pastime  in  the  army  so  the  personnel  offj.ce  was  invented  as 
a  place  where  the  "buck"  might  at  last  be  disposed  of. 
About  September  the  army  began  to  run  short  of  Officers  and 
as  a  result,  everybody  ober  here  had  to  do  about  threemmens 1  work. 
I  cant  say  that  they  worked  us  to  death  for  we  are  still  alive 
but  we  had  to  go  at  it  days,  nights  and  Sundays  and  sometimes 
until  two  and  three  o* clock  in  the  morning.  I  managed  to  get 
my  work  finaly  cleared  up  so  I  could  get  hoae  for  Christmas 
but  untxl  last  week  it  was  awfully  hard  driving. 
Now  my  job  is  to  take  care  of  the  discharging  of  men  and  we 
have  already  discharged  all  we  can  at  present.  There  wont  be  any 
more  of  that  until  some  more  men  are  sent  in  here  from  France. 
Whether  the  War  Department  will  do  that  or  send  them  to  the  bigger 
camps,  they  have  not  yet  informed  us  and  probably  will  not  do  so 
until  the  night  before  the  men  are  due  to  arriave.  That  is  the 
playful  little  way  they  have  of  doing  things. 
So  while  I  am  discharging  others,  I  am  unable  to  tell  when  I 
will  be  a,  le  to  get  out  myself,  That  seems  to  be  the  uppermost 
though  in  the  mind  of  every  American  soldier. 
