Travel Tuesday - Nonstop American Legion Goodwill Trip

Smith and Ware Both War  Vets - Both Got Shrapnel  in Legs

    Guns were booming ________ German armies were driving forward.  Americans were arriving to stem the tide Tenton advance.

     In the Argonne Grant Ware was doing his bit while in the equally famous encounter on the Meuse-Champagne Frank P. Smith was using his Springfield on Germans whose helmets showed above the trenches. Strange Coincidence

    October 9, 1918, saw heavy encounters in both sectors and on that day both Ware and Smith were shot down by shrapnel, each hit in a leg.

     Both had enlisted in Spokane, Ware with the 361st infantry of the 91st division and Smith in the 161st infantry of the old second Washington.

     Now the two buddies, whose careers have been marked by events so coincidental, are working together on a  Spokane-Canada-Mexico nonstop automobile tour under the auspices of the Spokane post of the American legion.

      One will drive while the other utilizes specially arranged sleeping facilities, and they will take turns in refuelingand oiling.  The six-cylinder car body will be their home for a week while the trip progresses, it they are successful in their efforts.

    Leaving Friday night, they will go to the Canadian line at Laurier and then back through Spokane, to California by way of Portland on the Columbia River highway and to old Mexico.

     Legion posts of the Pacific slope are cooperating with them to insure they will not be forced at any time to make a momentary stop which would be marked on the sealed recording ______ "failue" for the journey.  The two men know they have a hard battle ahead, but say after what they have been through it isn't going to seem so tough.

    Daily reports of the trip are to be published exclusively  in the Chronicle.

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