Category: Our Great Kids
America’s WWI Memorial — They answered the call.
The Woodsman’s War
News of the Great War in Europe had hardly reached the backwoods hills of western Kentucky. Folks thereabouts tended their own business and paid little attention to the doin’s of flatlanders and foreigners. But one day at a trading post an illiterate young hardscrabble farmer and woodsman asked the clerk to read him a page from the newspaper. The headline read “Your Country Calls You,” and he said it “struck him like a stone.”
His country was calling him? He dearly loved his country — the part and people he knew, anyway — and his country had “never before asked for a red cent nor a drop of sweat.” But now she called. That’s what he told his family, and announced he was “Goin’ for to be a soldier and fight the Hun.”
He walked and hitched over 100 miles to enlist in Black Jack Pershing’s Army. They made him a machinegunner and sent him to France. There, his unit replaced the decimated wraiths of a battered French regiment in the freezing, shell-blasted mud of the trenches. And there, on one side of the cratered moonscape of No-Man’s Land, he and his fellow “doughboys” lived and died and were sometimes buried alive in their collapsing bunkers.
The woodsman’s war consisted of keeping his machinegun running amid the muck, sometimes gunning down ghostly gray lines of patrolling Germans caught in flare-light, and once shooting down an enemy observation blimp which had broken its tethers and drifted west. Otherwise, he learned to burrow like a rat when the shells fell — and they did, constantly.
Unable to read or write, he occasionally got another Yank to pencil a brief letter for him. His family said he never complained other than to say “It’s hard here; hardest for the city boys and younguns.” Then the letters stopped.
The Last Fight
Envision a broad valley — No-Man’s Land — between rows of hills, with German trenches on the northeast and American trenches opposite. A reconstituted French force approached from the southwest, coming to relieve the Yanks — and the Germans knew it. They unleashed a hellstorm of artillery rounds on the Americans, blasting them with high explosives and the dreaded mustard gas. Then gas-masked infantry assaulted the Yank trenches, bayoneting survivors and then moving on, sweeping up the northeast-facing slope behind the Americans. Silence settled.
Unknown to the approaching French, the Germans held that high ground, in perfect position to cut them down like wheat as they marched up the treeless southwest slopes. But they had missed a few Yanks — one of them, the woodsman.
Almost blind, blasted full of shrapnel, badly burned both by fire and mustard gas, he crawled to his machinegun. It had been blown into the air and come down on the southwest side, facing the wrong direction — except now, it was the right direction. He opened up on the Germans’ backs. Without cover, they scattered — or fell.
Alerted by the angry stutter of a Yank machinegun and Germans fleeing over the crest, the French deployed and attacked.
For uncounted months the woodsman lay unidentified in a French hospital, unable to speak more than “croaking like a crow.” The Armistice came and went. The French gave him a Croix de Guerre, and finally, America gave him a voyage home.
The Woodsman Returns
Eighteen months after the homecoming parades, the woodsman limped into his family’s yard and up the porch, where he dropped into a rocking chair. Pelted with questions, he waved them away.
“That Kaiser Bill,” he croaked, “He was a rough ’un” — and he never spoke of the war again. Over decades, family members were able to fill in some details. He lived, raising corn, beans and two sons, who went back to fight the Hun again. The woodsman had his Croix de Guerre made into a watchfob. He died just after V-E Day, 1945, and his dying words were:
“Don’t get beat, ever, by anything; anyone. You might get killed, but never get beat. Don’t never, ever give up. If your country calls, you answer her! And never ask for nothing but God’s light to see by.”
On Veteran’s Day, November 11th, if you haven’t got anyone else to honor, remember the woodsman. I will.
Could you imagine seeing day after day all the gore and nastiness that your fellow man could inflict upon each other? No Thanks says I!! Grumpy
“Leadership is the art of accomplishing more than the science of management says is possible.”
This is one of many quotes attributed to legendary public statesman and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Since his retirement from public office in 2004, Powell has spent much of his time sharing his leadership knowledge with the business community. In his 2012 book, It Worked For Me, Powell attributes his success to hard work, straight talk, respect for others, and thoughtful analysis.
At the heart of the book are Powell’s “13 Rules” — ideas that he gathered over the years that formed the basis of his leadership principals.
Powell’s 13 Rules are listed below. They are full of emotional intelligence and wisdom for any leader.
1. It Ain’t as Bad as You Think! It Will Look Better in the Morning. Leaving the office at night with a winning attitude affects more than you alone; it conveys that attitude to your followers.
2. Get Mad Then Get Over It. Instead of letting anger destroy you, use it to make constructive change.
3. Avoid Having Your Ego so Close to your Position that When Your Position Falls, Your Ego Goes With It. Keep your ego in check, and know that you can lead from wherever you are.
4. It Can be Done. Leaders make things happen. If one approach doesn’t work, find another.
5. Be Careful What You Choose. You May Get It. Your team will have to live with your choices, so don’t rush.
6. Don’t Let Adverse Facts Stand in the Way of a Good Decision. Superb leadership is often a matter of superb instinct. When faced with a tough decision, use the time available to gather information that will inform your instinct.
7. You Can’t Make Someone Else’s Choices. You Shouldn’t Let Someone Else Make Yours. While good leaders listen and consider all perspectives, they ultimately make their own decisions. Accept your good decisions. Learn from your mistakes.
8. Check Small Things. Followers live in the world of small things. Find ways to get visibility into that world.
9. Share Credit. People need recognition and a sense of worth as much as they need food and water.
10. Remain calm. Be kind. Few people make sound or sustainable decisions in an atmosphere of chaos. Establish a calm zone while maintaining a sense of urgency.
11. Have a Vision. Be Demanding. Followers need to know where their leaders are taking them and for what purpose. To achieve the purpose, set demanding standards and make sure they are met.
12. Don’t take counsel of your fears or naysayers. Successful organizations are not built by cowards or cynics.
13. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. If you believe and have prepared your followers, your followers will believe.
Colin Powell’s rules are short but powerful. Use them as a reminder to manage your emotions, model the behavior you want from others, and lead your team through adversity.
Rest in Eternal Peace, General!
Thank you for your service to the United States, the world, and Mankind.
The world is a better place for you having been in it for 84 years.
Godspeed!
Now for the tasteless memes
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Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving Ground opened in 1917 and today is the military’s oldest weapons-testing facility in the United States. It’s a big operation. At its peak in World War II, Aberdeen had housing for more than 27,000, and today it still employs more then 12,000 people.
Through its first decades Aberdeen was a man’s world. But that changed during World War II. LIFE covered extensively the real-life Rosie the Riveters who moved into industrial jobs during that era, and the women who became weapons-testers for the first time in Aberdeen were part of that same phenomenon.
The story in LIFE’s Feb. 1, 1943 issue described how the soldiers who once worked the testing grounds but had been deployed overseas were at first replaced by male civilians. Then “as the draft hit hard, the civilians began to disappear and in their place came thousands of women.”
And who were these women?
The women come from everywhere. Many have husbands in the Army. Others have husbands who also work at Aberdeen. They wear bright-colored slacks, and their “firing fronts” are a rippling blend of pink. blue and orange, mixed with white and black powder from the guns. They serve on crews of all weapons up to the 90-mm A.A.’s. [anti-aircraft guns]. They handle highly technical instruments. They drive trucks, act as bicycle messengers, swab and clean vehicles. A few of them have even been tested as tank drivers, but that work, with its physical bruises, is still a little too tough for them.
The declaration of that last sentence reflected a time when women were making their first inroads to military service. In 1942 the WACs had just come into being (see LIFE’s coverage of the first WACs here) and the change in attitudes about what roles women could play was slow and incremental. It was not until 2015 that the Department of Defense opened all military occupations and positions to women.
The photographs by Myron Davis and Bernard Hoffman capture a world in transition. Some pictures indulge in the novelty of the moment—such as the photo of a woman who looks like a schoolmarm set up behind the sites of a machine gun with an ammunition belt being fed through it. But in other photos the women, such as Mrs. Ruby Barnett, a grandmother who had never fired a gun before coming to work at Aberdeen, look right at home in their new jobs. Those pictures seem to ask the question about the women taking on this new line of work: Well, why not?
A woman tested a 30 caliber machine gun at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Women loaded shells into an anti-aircraft gun at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Myron Davis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A group of men and women tested a 90 mm anti-aircraft gun at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, 1942.
Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Viola Testerman carried a 41-pound shell at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, 1942.
Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Betty Wainwright and Opal Burchette fed cartridges into magazines at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Nealie Bare at work at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942. Here she hammered a plug into a test shell to keep the shell’s sand from running out.
Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. Ruby Barnett, a grandmother, had never fired a gun before coming to work at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland during World War II.
Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. Ruby Barnett at work at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, 1942.
Myron Davis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. Ruby Barnett was among the women who tested artillery at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Myron Davis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Mrs. Ruby Barnett, a grandmother, tested a carbine at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Women fired machine guns at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Myron Davis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Women tested machine guns at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Myron Davis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A woman loaded a bullet aircraft cannon at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Myron Davis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
A women tested a 20 millimeter aircraft cannon at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Myron Davis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock
Aerial view of testing range at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.
Bernard Hoffman/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock