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Our new adjutant, Mahan's successor, was Leo Powers. His family ran the Powers Hotel in Rochester, New York. I gathered that it was an old and respected hostelry. It was still in business when I visited Rochester in the 1950's, though I was booked elsewhere, at one of Mr. Hilton's homey establishments. So I did not get a chance to ask about Leo. He had come to the 88th from Blois, where the AEF maintained a station to take care of misfits. There they were reclassified and assigned to new duties if a suitable job could be found. Leo had been trained as an observer, but after a brief experience at the front he had decided to stay on the ground. In WW1 that was his privilege. Any flier could quit whenever he wished, simply by giving notice to his commander. I understand this was changed in WW2, when fliers who wanted to quit were turned over to psychiatrists. In WW1 psychiatrists were called on to treat what was called "shell shock", but not to treat men who were just plain scared. I don't know how the line was drawn between shell shock and ordinary fright. So Leo became our adjutant and he was very good at the job. We all liked him, and I never knew anyone to twit him about his past.

Only one of our original 36 flying officers elected to quit. He was First Lieutenant Boylan, an observer, and he happened to be the only one of us who held a regular army commission. The pilots were all "emergency" officers in the U.S. Reserves. The observers, except Boylan, were either U.S. Reserve or National Guard. So it was by no chance coincidence that Boylan was the only one of our observers to be promoted during the time I served with the squadron. After Boylan gave notice to Powers that he was through flying, he had to stay with us a few days awaiting orders that would send him to Blois. While he was waiting he received notice that he had been promoted to a captaincy. He had already been promoted once before joining the 88th. He had originally been commissioned a second lieutenant at the end of the first officers' training camp, just as I had been. Any of us that summer could have applied for a regular army commission. I would have done so, but did not think I could meet the physical requirements. I still had the same bad teeth that had made me resign the West Point appointment in 1911.

Now I am glad that I did not become a professional soldier.