LOOKING BACK

During World War I Dartmouth undergrade were at the ready: They even dug trenches behind Alumni Gym and on the football field to replicate the battlefields in Europe. Amid near-daily alumni updates about life on the front, The D ran articles detailing progress on the College's trench construction and advertised future staged battles. The November 3, 1917, afternoon mock-battle was previewed as "an exact representation of the fighting which

THE BIG DIG is faking place at the present time in Europe." All freshmen were required to devote a specified number of hours to military training, and the classes broke into numerous battalions and regiments, complete with a dress code determined by rank and demerits for poor performance and behavior. Some wayward students had an option for working off demerits: They could serve time digging in the trenches.