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22 Army Hist. 1 (1992)

handle is hein.milandgov/aryhsy0022 and id is 1 raw text is: ARMY HIST ORY THE PROFESSIONAL BULLETIN OF ARMY HISTORY PB-20-92-2 (No. 22) Washington, D.C. Spring 1992 It's Time to Remember the Doughboys Edward M. Coffman For a boy growing up in Kentucky during the 1930s, the World War was a presen Ce. My father was a veteran, as were many of his friends. They were active in the American Legion, which played a promi- nent role along withthe local National Guardsmen- in parades and other patriotic ceremonies. By IL: courthouse, there was a captured German field piece which attracted me and other sImall boys on our way to and frwm the nearby picture show. On the streets, iticularly on Saturdays when the farmers came to town, one would occasionally see men wearing bis and pieces of Army unifomis. Ihen. there was always the minute of silence on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month that we school children observed. When I was in the fourth grade (1938), 1 happened to be working on a problem at the 1l ck board aA the magical moment and had to stand quiet and motionless for minutle-quitea strain for a 9- year old boy. The coming of World War T1 pushed aside memo- ties of the earlier war. Instead of a few men in remnants of World War I uniforms, the streets were filled with oldiers from ath wly constru ctcd Army camp a few mies outside town. The Germ an gun soon went the way of many of the old helmets to a serap drive, and school children no longer paused to observe Armistice Day My brother and his friends were involved in this longer and harder war than the one their fathers knew, Withmi five years of VJ Day, there was the Korean War, and, by the lftieth anniversary of the Ameincan entry into the Great War, the nation was mired in Vietnam. By this ime my father referred ito himself and his fellow veterans as the forgotten men from a forgoten war, Certainly, om found little evidence C31 that golden anniv rsary in the media Americans were too concemned with the Southeast Asia war to give much thought to World War L The few who did were struck by the irony of the course of events since 1918, as compared with the high hopes expressed in Woodrow Wilson's phrase-the war to end all wars and the ideal indicated by the phrase on the Alied and American Victry Mcd'L - the Greal War for Civilitation, The-3 Grmans, inCidn- tally, merely put the daics (191448) on their service medal. Others, who at least were awa that the U itd Stateshad fought ina warin 1917-18, tlended todismniss its importance. Because of the failure of President Wilson to attain his idealistic goals at the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919, there was a wave of disap- pointment and frustration and, eventually, cynicism about the American effort to play a leading role on the world scene. This reaction, in turn, led to a downgrad- ing of the American role by scholars and other opinion makers. One can imagine how inturiating this was to those veterans. An incident at a scholarly meeting some ten years after the war reflected the attitudes of the day. After several scholars had presented papers about various aspects of the American role in the war, the chairman of the panel called upon a general who happened to be in the audience for comment. Somewhat dismayed by what he had heard, the general began with a question: What do you gentlemen think was the basic contribu- tion of the United States in the war? After some hemming and hawing, one participant finally volun- leered: We were the straw that broke the camel's back The general responded: Straw, hell! We were the sledgehammerthat broke thtdamn camel'shack! The two million men in the A merican Expedition- ary Forces (AEF) were that sledgehammer. No less an authority than Field Marshal Pali von Hindenburg made that point emphatically in an interview with four Americanjoumalists shortly after the armistice. When asked what had ended the war, he responded: the

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