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| The National Order of Trench Rats was conceived by a group of disabled World War I veterans who were patients in the United States Public Health Service Hospital No. 54 located at Arrowhead Springs, California. Because of the shortage of beds following WWI, this hospital, like many others, had been converted out of a building formerly used for other purposes. This particular building in which the hospital was housed had been a well known hotel located on the side of the mountain about seven miles from the city of San Bernardino. |
| The hotel at Arrowhead Springs as it looked when in use by the founding vermin of the National Order Of Trench Rats. It burned down in a forest fire in 1938. |
| Some of the patients were members of the Los Angeles Chapter of the DAV. The hospital was isolated and there were no activities for the patients to pass the time, the majority of whom were ambulatory. A few members of this DAV Chapter conceived the idea of organizing a group of the most active members as a secret, fraternal society and devised an initiation ceremony for fun and amusement and invited for membership only those DAV members who were most active in the Chapter. As a result of this, most of the patients became members of the DAV and its delegates to the National Convention in Salt Lake City in 1924 were able to get the N.O.T.R. officially recognized as an Auxiliary of the DAV. |
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| HISTORY, National & Dugout |
| DUGOUT #319 |
| The details remain a little sketchy, and are shrouded in the kind of mysterious skullduggery that we as Trench Rats have come to love, but this much is known: The Dugout was formed when the D.A.V. national convention and the N.O.T.R. Rendesvous were held in Louisville, Kentucky back in the 50's. The first meeting of dugout #319 was held at a hotel called the Sealback, and the sumptuous digs are pictured below left. Below right is "The Brown," where the D.A.V. held court. |
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