Quantico

The full poignancy of wandering and the wanderlust cannot be appreciated unless one has a home. The Marines are, by nature of their calling, wanderers. But they have a home; it is Quantico, Va., their great training ground, the place from which they go forth in war and peace to the ends of the round earth. Now it is proposed that the Marines should own their own home.

The proposal was made by Major General John Archer Lejeune, Commandant of the Marine Corps, in his annual report. He urged the Government to buy Quantico for the Marines because the dual civil and military control of the town has created conditions highly undesirable and adversely affecting the morale of his command. He also asked the Government to purchase for the Marines an aerodrome at Brownfield, Va.

Trust Major General Lejeune to look out for the Marines; he has spent more than 30 of his 57 years in the Corps and his life has been bound up in it. A Louisianian by birth, son of a Confederate captain of cavalry, he has lived with the Marine Corps through its growth and travails. During the Spanish War, he commanded the Marine Guard first on the Cincinnati, then on the Massachusetts. With 400 men, he camped in the Panama Canal Zone, in 1903-04, while Panama extracted her freedom from Colombia. In the Cuban revolution of 1912, he commanded the U. S. troops who pacified the district of Santiago. In 1914, he took part in the capture of Vera Cruz.

Until 1916 there was no higher officer in the Corps than colonel, excepting the Major General commanding. Indeed, the Corps had no regimental organization--provisional regiments of battalions having been formed in emergency. In that year, Congress ordered otherwise. Colonel Lejeune was made a Brigadier General and he helped to reorganize the corps along the lines of the U. S. Army. In 1917 he was made Commander at Quantico Training Camp. Not until May of 1918 was he ordered overseas. He commanded the 64th Infantry Brigade, the 4th Marine Brigade. He was named Major General. Late in July, he took command of the 2nd Division. Who needs to recite the familiar roster of its glories? Belleau Wood, Vaux, Saint Mihiel, Blanc Mont, Argonne-Meuse offensive. It suffered 24,000 casualties, the greatest of any U. S. division. It captured 12,000 prisoners--one-quarter of the entire number taken by the U. S. Army. Now Lejeune, the gallant fighter, the able tactician, the great disciplinarian, Commandant of a Corps which he helped to make famous, is trying to buy that Corps its home.