THE END OF A SOLDIER

Grey River Argus, 20 December 1920, Page 5

THE END OF A SOLDIER

HONOURS.

Rattle his bones over the stones, He 's only a pauper whom nobody owns. In deed, ifnot in word, this is the sad epitaph which a soulless British j Government wrote for an ex-soldier who j was buried in Stirling last wcekll When you, young man, with the adventure lust in your blood, feel tempted by the alluring snares of the Army recruiter, just spare a moment to read this tale. The 'soldier was William O'Donnell, a Hamilton lad who so far back as 1899 joined the British Army and served with the <J R.G.A. for seven years, mainly guarding the Fat Men's interests in India. He came back to civil life in 1907, but the roll of the war drums in 1914 stirred him to risk ! •lis life for "liberty," and he re-cn-listcd*in his old regiment at Stirling in October of that year. February oi 1916 saw him in France, and by September he had the rank of sergeant. In Ajgil of the following year, rheumatism and sciatica had gripped him, and he passed through a long trail of hospitals in France and England. Finally he Avas sent to a convalescent home in Rfpon, from which in March, 191 S, ho was transferred to Dover and attached to the 40th Company, R.G.A., and classed 82. Drafted into a military Labour unit, ho was sent to the .shipbuilding yard of John Brown, Ltd., Clydebank, but 10 days' labour wrecked his patched-up constituion, and, on reporting "sick" he 'was sent home to his wife and boy at 30 Barn Road, Stirling. While there, 6'Donncll received rt" lotice stating that, he had been transferred to the Alloa Shipbuilding Company, but he was so ill that he was unable to go. -Another spell of hospital and infirmary treatment followed; June, 1918, sent to Stirling Infirmary; later, sent to convalescent mine, then back to the infirmary; in March ."removed; to Strathpeffer for treatment, returned on June 27, 1919; back into Stirling Infrrmaryf log amputated, and scut again to his own home. For a time he had been given Class ' treatment allowance, but, despite the fact, that ho had never previously had liciimatism or sciatica in his life, 0 ; - Donnell received a letter intimating that the authorities had decided that his illness was not due to but was " llv ' aggravated by military service, and the treatment money ceased on May 27 last. The authorities declared that their liability for O'Donnell ended with the gratuity he had been granted, and, left without resources, this soldier who had been roasted in India and frozen in France for the interests of tho ruling class of Britain had to throw himself with his wife and child on "tho Parish." By special . efforts they were granted 30/- pei week. And now comes the crowning cruelty nnd ingratitude! O'Donnell died on September 21, and on the morning of Thursday, the 23rd — the day he was buried — his widow sent to the Parish -ouncil office for money. The messen jet returned with 2/6 in respect of the lead soldier's boy, and the informaion that as O'Donnell was dead no "urthcr payment could be made in regard to him. In the afternoon of the same day )'Dpnnell was buried with military 'honours," six sergeants marched ilongside his clay,' and a firing party volleyed a farewell to another worker luped and betrayed by a base and renorsoless Government in the intersts of the Capitalist clr-ss. — "Glasgow forward. ' '