months have been underrated. They, however, belong to a comparatively
small and enviable minority. Those who turned the tide in July, 1918,
and who knocked the line at St. Mihiel into its proper place in
September, also bore the brunt on the Meuse and the dreary
mud-spattered monotony of the Army of Occupation. The great mass of
the American army saw but a few brief weeks of fighting during October
and November. Thousands of other Bills, equally brave and more eager
because it was denied them, never heard the sound of guns except on
the target range.

This is not a treatise on International Relations. It is not a
chronology of battles. It is not a memorial of brave deeds. It is
merely a few impressions of Pvt. William Smith, Buck, placed in a
situation so new, so incomparable, that it had wiser men than he
guessing. He was one of those who left their reasons for being "there"
to be analyzed by men not so occupied in the business of keeping
alive. He would have been bored to death if you had tried to explain
them to him anyway. His loyalty and patriotism were so unquestioned
that its discussion was absurd. Sentimental, yet so sensitive to
obvious sentimentality that he died many times making fun of the
things that he was dying for.




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


"Marched till my pack gained a hundred an fifty pounds"