Chapter 32Manfred and I spent the next week in Manila
preparing a report on our activities with the Twentieth Kansas
Volunteers for General Otis and briefing newly arrived officers. We
told them about the Philippines, its people, the war, and what to
expect in the fight with Aguinaldo’s army.
Then we received our discharge papers. And
that, I thought, was the end of my military career. How
wrong I was. But that’s a story for another time.
Two months later, we held a double wedding
in Manfred’s sprawling garden. It was a late-afternoon affair, and
the yard was profuse with the heady fragrance of ylang-ylang and
sampaguita, the national flower of the Philippines. Manfred,
Katharina, and I were not Catholics, so having the service in one
of Manila’s Catholic churches was out of t
