Machine Gun Company, 351st Infantry, 88th Division, AEF

It would lie rather singular it every captain in this old regiment did not refer to his company as the company upon which the real reputation of the regiment was based. Here in the Machine Gun Company I feel, as every one of the officers and men feel, that we have one of the greatest organizations ever perfected, both as a fighting unit and as a “maneuver” unit, for who can ever forget the rain, the mud and the cold of those bleak days along the Ornain?

Yet it was with a song on our lips and a grin for the inspectors that we went through those days. Among the machine gunners the days were always happy, from the Dodge days through the man-killing hikes, days at the front and the period of waiting here on these Meuse hills. Our morale has been and is 100 percent and now that we’re going home our enthusiasm is Unbounded.

Yet at this time and in days to come we will look back and the thoughts of our own machine gunners who are going to watch over these hills, long after we’ve discarded the O. D., will bring back memories ot those great fellows whose adventure has been greater than ours. We honor our dead.

I know that the men of this company are going to find the bigger, the greater in lite; they are bigger men because they have served and mingled with men. I wish each of you all that's happy in life.

Herbert A. Metzger,
Captain 351st Infantry.

Noyon, Sarthe, France,
May 16, 1919