Grace Under Fire Page 3

  I wish to send you a long kiss, for I love you and you only. John

  Allen returned to Margaret, and they married in 1921. For his courage in action, Allen received the Croix de Guerre and was cited by General John Pershing for gallantry.

  In a Letter to His Pastor Back Home, Private Walter Bromwich Questions God’s Purpose in a Time of War

  The sense of excitement with which so many troops had left the United States in 1917 and 1918 to fight in the “Great Adventure,” as they referred to World War I, was quickly tempered by the sheer slaughter they encountered. Machine guns, flamethrowers, tanks, airplanes, poison gas, and other “advances” in warfare had made it possible for armies to wipe out thousands of men in a single day. Confronted with so much bloodshed, some soldiers began to reconsider their idealism and even their faith. In a short letter to his pastor back in Pennsylvania, a young private named Walter Bromwich laid out the questions he was grappling with, particularly God’s role in a spectacle so terrible as warfare.

  Dear Reverent:

  Here I sit in my little home on the side of the hill thinking of the little church back home, wondering how you are getting along. Don’t think I am down-hearted because I am writing you, but it’s a queer thing I can’t explain, that ever since I volunteered I’ve felt like a cog in a huge wheel. The cog may get smashed up, but the machine goes on, and I know I share in the progress of that machine whether I live or die, and that seems to make everything all right. Except, perhaps, when I lose a pal, it’s generally one of the best but yet it may be one of the worst. And I can’t feel God is in it.

  How can there be fairness in one man being maimed for life, suffering agonies, another killed instantaneously, while I get out of it safe? Does God really love us individually or does He love His purpose more? Or is it better to believe he makes the innocent suffer for the guilty and that things will be squared up some day when those who have escaped suffering here will suffer, and those who have suffered here will escape suffering. Sounds rather calculating, doesn’t it, and not a bit like the love of a Father.

  What I would like to believe is that God is in this war, not as a spectator, but backing up everything that is good in us. He won’t work any miracles for us because that would be helping us to do the work He’s given us to do on our own. I don’t know whether God goes forth with armies but I do know that He is in lots of our men or they would not do what they do.

  Do write me and let me know how the church is getting along.

  Remember me to all—especially The Altar Guild, and tell them to “carry on” the war work. My motto is “carry on.” So here’s good-luck to all.

  Yours sincerely,

  Pvt. Walter T. Bromwich

  Company A 6th U. S. Engineers American Expeditionary Forces

  Four months after writing this letter, Bromwich was shot in both the back and the head during combat. After extensive hospitalization, he recovered fully from his wounds.

  American Red Cross Nurse Maude B.Fisher Sends Words of Comfort to the Mother of a Young Soldier Who Died After the Armistice Was Signed

  At the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the war was over. Cities and towns throughout France, Germany, Russia, Great Britain, the United States, and many other nations exploded with joy on November 11, 1918, when the peace was announced. But for countless families around the globe, that happiness quickly turned to despair when they learned that their loved one had survived the war only to die from the horrific influenza pandemic that was claiming tens of millions of lives worldwide. One of these victims was a young American soldier named Richard Hogan, who became sick and then passed away just days after victory had been declared. Knowing that Hogan’s mother would receive only a brief telegram from the government stating that her boy was dead, an American Red Cross nurse named Maude B. Fisher sent Mrs. Hogan a more personal message. Although not overtly about faith, Fisher’s letter is the very embodiment of compassion and kindness.

  November 29th, 1918.

  Letter by Maude B. Fisher, and Richard Hogan’s grave

  My dear Mrs. Hogan:

  If I could talk to you I could tell you so much better about your son’s last sickness, and all the little things that mean so much to a mother far away from her boy.

  Your son was brought to this hospital on the 13th of November very sick with what they called Influenza. This soon developed into Pneumonia. He was brave and cheerful though, and made a good fight with the disease. Several days he seemed much better, and seemed to enjoy some fruit that I brought him. He did not want you to worry about his being sick, but I told him I thought we ought to let you know, and he said all right.

  He became very weak towards the last of his sickness and slept all the time. One day while I was visiting some of the other patients he woke up and seeing me with my hat on asked the orderly if I was his sister come to see him. He was always good and patient and the nurses loved him. Everything was done to make him comfortable and I think he suffered very little, if any pain.

  He laughed and talked to the people around him as long as he was able. They wanted to move him to another bed after he became real sick and moved the new bed up close to his, but he shook his head, that he didn’t want to move. The orderly, a fine fellow, urged him. “Come on, Hogan,” he said, “Move to this new bed. It’s lots better than the one you’re in.” But Hogan shook his head still.

  “No”, he said, “No, I’ll stay where I am. If that bed was better than mine, you’d ‘a’ had it long ago.”

  The last time I saw him I carried him a cup of hot soup, but he was too weak to do anything but taste it, and went back to sleep.

  The Chaplain saw him several times and had just left him when he breathed his last on November 25th, at 2:30 in the afternoon.

  He was laid to rest in the little cemetery of Commercy, and sleeps under a simple white wooden cross among his comrades who, like him, have died for their country. His grave is number 22, plot 1. His aluminum identification tag is on the cross, and a similar one is around his neck, both bearing his serial number, 2793346.

  The plot of the grave in the cemetery where your son is buried was given to the Army for our boys and the people of Commercy will always tend it with loving hands and keep it fresh and clean. I enclose here a few leaves from the grass that grows near in a pretty meadow.

  A big hill overshadows the place and the sun was setting behind it just as the Chaplain said the last prayer over your boy.

  He prayed that the people at home might have great strength now for the battle that is before them, and we do ask that for you now.

  The country will always honor your boy, because he gave his life for it, and it will also love and honor you for the gift of your boy, but be assured, that the sacrifice is not in vain, and the world is better today for it.

  From the whole hospital force, accept deepest sympathy and from myself, tenderest love in your hour of sorrow.

  Sincerely,

  Maude B. Fisher

  Lieutenant David A. Thompson, Working with the American Graves Registration Service, Describes to His Father How Overwhelming It Was to Find and Identify the Body of a Certain Fallen Soldier

  Some of the most moving sights any American traveling abroad will ever see are the military cemeteries that hold the graves of U.S. troops who sacrificed their lives so that others could be free. The image of these immaculate grounds covered with row after row of white crosses is especially heartrending when one considers how far away these fallen heroes are from their homes in the States. Instead, they are buried side by side with their brothers in arms near the battlefields where they were killed. At the conclusion of World War I, the American Graves Registration Service was tasked with finding the bodies of slain U.S. troops throughout Europe and interring them properly. For the servicemen involved with this effort, the assignment could be a difficult one, both physically and emotionally. And for a twenty-seven-year-old Army lieutenant from Massachusetts named David Arthur Thompson
, the job was intensely personal as well; one of the bodies he helped recover was that of Joseph Thompson—his own brother. David wrote about the experience in an astonishingly candid but also very poignant letter to his father dated May 24, 1919.

  Dear Dad,

  I intended to write mother, but I can’t tell her as much as I can you. When you read this, you can explain to her everything that you wish.

  I have just taken Joe from his grave in the woods to a lot in the national American Cemetery at Romagne, France. I had to supervise the work myself on account of the shortage of officers; therefore, made a personal inspection of the body, which as you might know, I’d rather die than do, but which had to be done.

  I’m going to be very plain in telling you, and know it might hurt, but I know you will wish to know. I am awful glad that it was I that could do it, and not any of you, as it would have drove any of you insane.

  With three colored boys given me as a detail and a Dodge light truck, I made my way over the hills 40 miles. Sometimes the road was so bad we had to cross fields, and at one place had to build a small bridge over a place where the road was destroyed.

  We left Romagne at 7:30 and got to the grave at the Harmont woods at noon. I had the colored fellows dig down the side of the grave until we struck the body, or could see the clothes. I saw his feet and legs first, and then the rest of his body, just as he fell.

  He was dressed in new clothes, and had on his rain coat, and full pack, with the exception of the rifle and helmet. He was not in a box, as I expected, but merely a blanket thrown over the top of his body, and some loose boards over that. We removed the blanket, boards, etc. And of course, the body was badly decomposed…. I then unbuttoned the coats and found his other identification tag about his neck, which then and there identified him without going further.

  I then placed him in a coffin we had brought with us and placed it in the car. We then got the body of Carl Coombs out, as we did Joe. Coombs’ body was also badly decomposed, and he was a heavy boy to lift out….

  We then had both bodies in the car and drove back to Romagne by going away around through the rear of the German lines, and got back to the cemetery at Romagne about 5:00 p.m. There I turned both bodies over the undertakers who were present. I had the clothes removed and carefully searched, with good results.

  I found in his clothes: your last letter to him, a pocket knife, fountain pen, his diary, testament, Book of Psalms, another book with annotations of all mail received and sent, some small pictures he had received from home, about 10 Francs in money, two watches, one his own, the other a German watch, a few German coins, and German post cards.

  His diary is very interesting, and his Psalm book is wonderful, and shows that he died with a clean soul. This little book is known as, “The Shepherd Psalm”, and was given to him by Emily M. Rogers. In it he has written a little prayer which is as follows:

  “I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within. This is my most earnest prayer. Most of us I believe will see home and friends again. If we do, how many will curse every drink they have taken, every oath they have uttered, every shameful thing they have committed here, that they wouldn’t at home.

  It threatens my stripes, my discipline, my popularity, and my advancement. These four things are temporary. The clean within is permanent and is greater than all of these temporal things.

  This war will last but a short time. I have 30 to 1 chances of coming out. What is one year of service to indulgence, to say, 50 years and one year of service; and a clean conscience for the other 50 years. Anyway, after, before, present, or anytime, I despise all ungodly things. My real inner self resents it….”

  David A. Thompson

  Now, Dad, isn’t that most wonderful. I wish you would tell Dr. Day of it. There are many other smaller verses, all of great interest. On the last day of the diary, written October 14th, as he was leaving Verdun, for the Harmont, he writes as follows:

  “Oh, it’s hard to realize peace when the shells of the enemy are tearing all around us. “Peace” Oh! I pray God it will come before morning, and Mother’s prayer may be realized….”

  The poor kid prayed for peace and God gave it to him, Dad. How thankful I am that God gave it instantly. He was prepared to die, and did not suffer. I am happy over the thoughts of it, but God only knows how I miss him. I loved him so much.

  Dad, these things are worth the world to you. I shall preserve them carefully; although they are in pretty bad shape, owing to the dampness of the ground and body. Also, they are badly stained and smell bad. I have soaked them all in gasoline, and in a day or so, they will be O.K….

  Joe now rests beside Carl Coombs in the Romagne Cemetery, with 35,000 others. It is a beautiful place and our national Monument in France. I pray that you will let his body lie there in peace. I know he would wish it.

  He is now buried deep in a coffin; and on Memorial Day, his grave will be beautifully decorated. General Pershing will be there to pay his last respects to his men who fought under him and it will be a beautiful ceremony…. As I stay over here longer, and see how well our cemeteries here will be taken care of, I am more convinced that our Joe should remain here. I have had one experience of moving his body, and it was so hard that I wish now that you all would allow it to remain here as a part of our country’s great monument to the world war.

  They have started a movement in France to have some girl look after each grave, or group of graves. There is a young girl here that will look after them both, that is, Joe’s and Carl Coombs’. She is the only girl that has ever visited their graves. She went there only under great risk and hardships. Just because she wanted to be the one that could have charge of the graves after we are all gone. She wrote to Ma and as she speaks and writes very good English, I know Ma will be glad to write her in the years to come. As this girl has the time and means to go there, she will do it gladly. She has been reading Joe’s diary, and Psalm book, and I tell you, it is enough to impress anyone. They have been very good friends to me here.

  I know Ma will be pleased to have this stuff. To see his own writing will be more to her than his body. Please let it now Rest in Peace.

  I feel now that I have accomplished everything possible. The grave location is: Section 9, Plot 3, Grave 155. Joe is buried in the Northeast corner.

  Write soon, Dad, and love to all.

  Your Son, Art.

  World War II

  In 1933, Alexander Goode Writes to His Sweetheart, Theresa Flax, About a Growing Threat to World Peace—a Man Named Adolf Hitler

  &

  Goode, Weeks Before His Legendary Act of Heroism, Assures Theresa of His Love for Her

  Only months after the end of World War I, a young Austrian veteran of the conflict named Adolf Hitler became the chief propagandist for the National Socialist German Workers Party, which blamed most of Germany’s problems on Jews. Hitler was named president of the organization, better known as the Nazi Party, in 1920, and he swiftly gained national prominence by preying on the Germans’ postwar humiliation. Thirteen years later he was appointed chancellor of Germany. Although most Americans were understandably preoccupied with the Great Depression at the time, many Jews in the States were closely watching Hitler and his rabid anti-Semitism. They knew that German Jews were being harassed and persecuted and that Hitler’s rhetoric was becoming increasingly fanatical. Twenty-three-year-old rabbinical student Alexander Goode was well aware of Hitler’s ominous rise to power, and in a letter to his sweetheart, Theresa Flax, he predicted how dangerous Hitler would be—not only to Jews, but to Germany itself. The letter, dated April 3, 1933, was written more than six and a half years before the start of World War II. (The long ellipses are in the original.)

  Darling….

  Theresa, dear, why don’t you write me sometime more intimately about yourself, what your opinion on things is, what you think about, what your interests are, anything at all so that I can feel I am closer to you when I read your letters, something that will r
eveal you yourself, in all your charm and sweetness, just say anything at all as long as it concerns you and I will love it…….

  Recently I have cultivated a taste for poetry, a sure sign that I have become a mere shadow of my stern self and now am as sentimental and love-smitten as all the fellows I used to laugh at in former years. Keats and Shelley are my high-brow recreations now and fine fare they are too. If it were not for my infernal habit of reading so terrifically fast I could no doubt appreciate far more their charm and beauty. It is not at all mushy either. Perhaps when I become more familiar with them I’ll try to impart some of the joy I get from reading their poetry to you. The Bible is not so bad for poetry either. Just read the Song of Songs sometime. It is not long, but its beauty is overpowering. They are the lovesongs of the ancient Hebrews and as love poetry they have never been surpassed.

  Rabbi Alexander Goode

  Speaking of the Bible I might mention that by this time in my preparation for the career of a Rabbi I have read most of the Bible, and when I say read I really mean studied carefully, at least three times, so that I am more familiar with this great library of our people than I am with any other volume I have ever studied or read. In it is stored such a mine of information and beauty that I am tempted to think with our ancestors who absolutely believed that everything in the Bible was true and that all things that man can experience under the sun are contained therein. So much is treasured up that I could not begin to describe its contents. It really is heartrending that more people do not seek out its treasures. Perhaps if Hitler read some of its valuable sayings he would be a wiser ruler than he is destined to become.