Produced by KD Weeks, Brian Coe and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from images made available by the HathiTrust Digital Library.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Photographs have been moved to fall on paragraph breaks.
The few footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are referenced.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of issues encountered during its preparation.
This matricule (aluminum wrist-tag) is No. 11,436—Foreign Legion. Chevron and device on left sleeve denote a grenade-thrower of two years’ trench service—one bar for first year and one for each added six months. Note bullet scar on left eyebrow. ]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PRESS OF PETERSON LINOTYPING CO. CHICAGO, 1918
THIS AMERICAN CITIZEN’S BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED TO HIS COMRADE IN ARMS, THE FRENCH POILU
“Good luck, my soldier! You Americans are an extraordinary people. You are complex. We have thought we understood you—but, we do not. We never know what you will do next.”
I asked my French landlady, who thus responded to the news that I had joined the Foreign Legion, for an explanation. She said:
“In the early days of the war, when the Germans advanced upon Paris at the rate of thirty kilometers a day, driving our French people before them, pillaging the country, dealing death and destruction, when our hearts were torn with grief, Americans who were in Paris ran about like chickens with their heads cut off. They could not get their checks cashed; they had lost their trunks; they thought only of their own temporary discomfort, and had no sympathy for our misfortunes.”
“But,” she continued, “the same ship that took these people away brought us other Americans. Strong and vigorous, they did not remain in Paris. Directly to the training camps they went: and, today, they are lying in mud, in the trenches with our poilus.”
“Now, we should like to know, if you please, which are the real Americans—those who ran away, and left us when in trouble, or those who came to help us in time of need. Are you goers or comers?”