Changes at Fort Orange
The New York Guard was supplied by boys younger than 18 and men over 45 or who were otherwise ineligible for service. This meant that once the boys turned 18, a fair number either enlisted or were drafted to serve overseas.
Nearing completion Barracks. Card, Yanguish, Van Bergen, Hackel
William Yanguish is an example of this. Yanguish does not appear on the Troop B list in H-a-l-tt! Wha-zaa? as he enlisted on November 12, 1917, but his WWI Service Card shows that he left the guard and enlisted in the army at Fort Slocum on February 4, 1918. Very few records and no photos of Yanguish can be found online, but Thomas Burke managed to photograph and identify him in at least one photo at Camp Fort Orange before he left, shown here.
New York Guard Service Card, William Yanguish. New York State Archives.
Abstracts of WWI Military Service, 1917-1919. William Yanguish. New York State Archives.
Troop B guarded their section of the aqueduct from the day they mustered until the armistice, however, guardsmen leaving to enlist caused concern about the Troop's defensive strength. In late December of 1917, the 47th Infantry, originally stationed closer to New York City, was also assigned to the area. "When the 47th took over the sub-sector and named the camp in which they were quartered Camp Riegelmann, the result was to stir up a healthy spirit of rivalry between the two organizations. But ever this failed to erase the fact that the old order of things had changed. The sector that was once the pride of the Troop B men had been lost, in part, to another organization, and the Troop B men felt it" (Hutton, 91).