ONE MAN’S WAR
by
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Early in the year 1918 thousands of us shipped out for Europe to try to end a filthy war that had shattered a whole generation of French and British soldiers. They called us “doughboys,” for some reason, maybe because we were half-baked. It’s true we jaunted off like kids on a camping trip. But we soon found ourselves mired in the stinking mud of the trenches with mortar rounds falling on all sides and the smell of death in the air. Some were killed, many were ruined by gas or shell shock. Those of us who survived that last awful battle called The Argonne were left stunned and uncertain of who we were or who we had been. Some asked for God’s help; many just wrote it all off as the Devil’s doing. I’d agree – at least I knew that I had walked through Hell and lived. But the truth was, I didn’t believe in the Devil. I didn’t believe in anything.
It was in that state of confusion, with the guns gone silent and little to do but the sorry job of packing up to go home, that I bought a notebook and began to write. Just making a few sketches, jotting down notes, it brought a return of some sort of order to my mind. I finished this record after I got home, a personal catharsis which was never meant to be shared. Mainly I was trying to understand the progression that brings a kid to manhood, and why that doesn’t necessarily make him a hero.
Hero was a word that loomed large over Ookey, my lifelong buddy and fellow warrior. He saw himself, I think, as some sort of mixture of Captain Kidd and Teddy Roosevelt and Jim Jeffries combined. When I thought back to him I sketched a cartoon – of a wild-haired idiot in a pilot’s jacket with scarf, gun in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The caption is: One man’s war is another man’s piece of pie. His grin is full of the joy of the kill. Is that what creates a hero?
When I try to remember my own early struggles with that word I return to a day in the summer of my thirteenth year, the moment when I first realized I probably was a coward.
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About the Book
When Bernie Jones went to war in 1918 he was part of a transition that changed the whole nature of our country. Born just before the turn of the Century, he grew up in a day when
It didn’t happen. They fought fierce last-ditch engagements at Chateau Thierry, Saint Mihiel, and especially the
About the Author
A.E. Johnson is the pseudonym of an author who has written over two dozen books, some under other names. Annabel Johnson, sometimes coauthoring with her husband Edgar, has become well know for her western historical novels, as well as more contemporary stories. Her books have won significant awards, including the William White Award, the Friends of American Writers’ Award and a Golden Spur from the Western Writers of America. ONE MAN’S WAR is particularly personal, in that it uses as background material the war memoirs of the author’s own father, who grew up in the innocent days of the turn of the Century and went off to fight in one of the bloodiest engagements of World War I, the battle of The Argonne.
After living and traveling throughout the country for many years, Mrs. Johnson now lives in