KPR Presents: World War I Ghost Soldier

sam neil today and kbr prevent we marked memorial day with those thoughts are from the war to end all wars and mcintyre and on today's program the first person narrative of the world war one veteran written and performed by david tennant will here's a soldier in just a minute but first the national world war one museum and memorial in kansas city is marking memorial day weekend with a variety of events and activities the museum is offering free admission for veterans and active duty military over the weekend as well it's half price general admission for the public a memorial day ceremony will take place at ten o'clock monday morning with a bell tolling ceremony at noon nearly twenty vintage military vehicles will be on display on the ground including those from world war two the korean war and operation desert storm along with a vietnam era huey helicopter finally one hundred and forty us flights will be on display on the

grounds calling attention to the one hundred forty veterans for lost to suicide every week you can find a complete list of memorial day events and activities at their website the world war dot org david kamin is a writer retired teacher and vietnam war veteran he talks about how he researched and wrote world war one go soldier the research comes across an incredible source and with messages and reports and letters all of which are related to world war one they were all they were all actually reports and then came the idea of consolidating them into one person telling a story and an i adopted the persona that the ghost soldier there are only a few additions to this piece and one is a section of poetry out from wilfred owen and the other one has a line toward the end

which relates to my mother and myself when i came back my mother the line in the script is my mother wanted me to be like i had been before that or all the rest of it is compiled of actual reports letters messages whatever composed into one person telling a story one of their greatest treasures of world war one history is right up the road in kansas city that national a world where one museum how much did you did your research take you there in you and what did that lend your your research i've toured the world war one museum in kansas city and it's i wouldn't say that played a part just validated and in some ways the last thing that stuck in my mind more than anything else and the touareg that was a graphic description of the british shipping all with little red ships to read chip still read ships and the rigged ships were all ships that have been sunk by

the germans and your mind goes into the reality the real isn't the understanding that everyone of those ships haired sailors and every one of those sailors probably went down with their ship so it's that grimness and there is at any event later when you walk across the entryway and you see all the puppies on the poppies represent add specific death an individual deaths on a day of the battle so that's great stuff do you have any stories with indigo soldier a bed and that you think really convey the experience of that soldier i think the one where the voice and that also is a true story where is close to a dying soldier in a dying soldier is calling for water water autor and he crawls forward against the advice

not the command but the advice of his lieutenant to a crawl to a soldier's dead with the canteen to bring that to crawl back with a dangerous snipers to the dying soldier and giving him a drink of water and the soldier calls him a good fellow and dies with him holding his head certainly that's a memorable instance of of a subtle heroism that isn't going to be recorded anywhere or receive medals out because basically it's an act of humanity one human to another responding despite the danger of death to address water water water he pleaded that's david heyman of topeka and now his first person narrative world war one soldier soldier they called us

soldiers dough boys american doughboy is sent to fight in the war to end all wars you call that world war while fighting started in nineteen fifty one of five million american men who served i went to war in france or america tried to stay neutral that europe fight the submarine sank off ships in april nineteen seventeen american declares war on germany over there over there son the word over there the yanks are common for what did i know of war i was a kansas farmer sun drafted from the la county and sent to fort riley oh i could read and write the song drafted men couldn't even speak english after government insurance and allotments were taken out i got paid some six dollars and thirty cents a month for sergeants got a little more of course then carried

dice a day or two after payoff most money would be gambled into the hands of a grinning lady luck army life started with physicals why oh why don't you just thought we were cattle doctors checked every man eyes and ears heart lungs teeth and feed and everything in between what thoughts and shops were bad and b lynn jackson for typhoid given three times with ten days between smallpox vaccine was worse glass tubes a vaccine were broken in each man got cut across the armed with jagged glass i watched him break glass tubes a vaccine and cut each man's arm if a man yelled dollars slashed his arm twice that i didn't make a sound owe last question who notify if you are killed

now camp funston was a dismal place i was assigned a company ge we started at once on clothes order drilling tell us that it's fourteen hours a day the worst trouble was the sickness in camp measles mumps chicken pox the most terrible epidemic the united states ever known was influenza the flu nineteen eighty that it really started in camp funston but an army camps in the united states will one of every four man came down with the flu one of every twenty four develop pneumonia one of every sixty seven died patients overflowed the wars had to be placed on shared beds on the floor even on shelves men in a patently splendid health and perfect physical condition were suddenly desperately ill and many of them dead in less than forty eight hours if they recovered from the initial attack there were stricken with pneumonia and died when their

lungs filled they actually drowned in their own fluids one week in october nineteen eighteen of the one hundred cases of flu over eighty percent died and there was no cure over five hundred and forty eight thousand americans soldiers and civilians at home and in france died so before it ended all worldwide toll of twenty one million six hundred and forty two thousand men women and children died in some places there was an imminent of coffins for the dead yet despite one quarantine flag after another all along we learned this soldiering game we practiced seeking cover and firing from behind obstacles we were taught treats smearing play on face and hands attaching weeds and grass to disguise uniforms i'm going to sign on to muzzle of a rifle meant death accomplice unreliable too much metal on the

battlefield not bad luck if you're the third guy on a match time enough for a sniper kill you and have a cigarette that there's one instructor get us at dirty trick other boilers is out of throw a grenade one long swing back and forward with the arms stiff you sure how it's done well this fellow brothers arm back but dropped a grenade that grenade landed square in the middle of our huddle try diet on top of another man we piled up like a purple spinach a fake grenade but dang instructor laughed and laughed on track to save your life boy is a grenade lands don't go second hearted or freeze in place die or run but moone boys move aloha all of us soldiers cross the atlantic by ship

fourteen days on the ocean in fear of submarines we landed at liverpool england and then crossed by ferry to france scarcely off the ship we met a long train of hospital cars we looked and saw for the first time the horrors of war man suffering wounded bandaged arms and legs missing who are in the name of god is that's what we're headed for the site struck us don't nobody said a word well each man got to round aluminum identification tags dog tags recall the name blood type serial number each tag came with the art of white cotton table half inch wide weird old heads at all times if killed the lord head would be cut off and sent to graves registration the other ted stage on the body

and finally clearing a huge heavy steel helmet and we called him to lucy's because ford motor company made i'm opposed to enhance became a lifesaver for many and god uses wash basins shoveled as even tell us every day we had gas mask real area let's go times the enemy used five kinds of gas tear gas was painful an annoying sneezing gas even a few whiffs cause violent sneezing really hope that those two gasses would cause soldiers to pull off their mass than suffer and die one poison gas followed poisonous chlorine gas suffocated feinstein gas smelled like musty hey i was very poisonous to mustard gas called because of its smell and yellow color was the cruelest weapon of the war this gas was fired in special cells which

burst with little notice if liquid mustard gas price the victim that man was burned and blistered and blinded their slow tiller no cure was no captain george marshall davis a speech once a lot mayors in baltimore there's a beast in every fighting man which begins finding out it's changed their law a good officer of us learned early on how to keep the beast under control both in his van and himself then we moved forward toward the front marching marching down french roads so dusty man and vehicles got voted heavily with dust always march mud sloppy miles and cold and rain like fifteen minutes rest tan

we marched in full battle gear if i type in my shoulder straps my arms lost circulation oh if i leaned back my legs went numb and that dang time of cholera choked me if i lean back to the steel canteens cut into my back let me tell you what we'll make your back ache i wore a helmet carry two full ten teams of water carried forty five five round clips of thirty caliber bullets and ammunition pouches and bandoliers across my chest was longer boldly gas mask case stuffed inside my tall black were two days' rations attend half for sandbags and a flare the blade of a shell stuck out of the top around my waist i carried two hand grenades a rifle grenade and a sheath for the band ethics ally springfield rifle might as well a band born a pack mule

well during the heights we sang until we stop for want of breath going to bolster our morale i suppose the officers let us sing songs were its body is only three thousand or even could make up or assign favorites like bill hay yield the gang's all here pack up your troubles in your old man it's a long long way the temporary re how you gonna keep bumped down on the farm after they've seen patrie mademoiselle from our mcinnis parlay vu singing stopped and we got to the front runners exert the trenches the space between our american trenches and the german trenches was called no man's land it had barbed wire fences whoever thought of use and barb wire on the battlefield certainly knew what slowed a man

down those germans string a tight wire under the grass causing them to trip and plunged headfirst into the wire roles behind wire fences seven or eight feet apart and today three wires to reach friends one slide one quite a few loose any soldier tripped on those fences or got snagged on barbed wire made an easy target for a german sniper when life in the trenches was a soul searching for a thousand plus men shoveled mud the color and consistency of melted chocolate ice cream shells and bullets and gas man fought against fear and panic i wish i was part of a working party dig a trench three hundred yards long then came the stench and the officers discovered they had made us did right into a german graveyard and we used that trench crawled on hands and knees over

matter dirty snow or something else every breath pulled in the stench of excrement and death we lived in dugouts down to forty feet underground between ten to fifteen man live in an outer darkness no electricity no beds so man slept in their uniforms shoes taken off at that would freeze step by morning so boys slept day after day with her shoes on what was clear was less stayed in a cowboy hat and those dugouts were infested with lice cooties looks like the kid about that smaller blood second committees by the hundreds infested my clothes and body laid eggs in the seams of underwear in uniforms in each man's body heat produced generation after generation and the bites cause swords and stabs all over the body and caught ha i'm terrible itching boy if i had time i took off my clothes and killed the devil's the

snap and between my thumb nails a satisfying when they had to get rid of their eggs i used to candlelight lighter or matches and one over the scenes of my clothes and all those blasted committee stayed with me until the war was over and i got the last and rats the place was crawling with rats great big field rat i never saw such rats a football not count the tail private gone to sleep and got bitten through the lit by a rabbit started to make a meal of his face what what what one day a rat saw me walk in the trench waited until i got absolutely done my shoulder and before i could not enough lead or the other side of the trench that's how smart they were sooner or later everybody got sick sick with dysentery caused by flies rotting bodies that were spoiled fruit flyers crop millions and millions and millions of lives in spots the air where

black with a cloud of them and mess will you get your food and andy carried away to a shady spot and sit down to eat the food is covered thick with fires i'd wave one hand over grab a spoon full blown to chase away hundred or so fliers and go down my food if i was lucky audience while only flies from device wildflowers those flaws were unlucky to get no matter how miserable life in those trenches and dugout seemed when you're ordered only doll sure makes a fellow think we sat and we waited waiting around his worst awaiting gets my go to you makes me nervous you wonder about everybody you ever done a wrong too and we don't hardly see a word to anybody i hardly seem the people around here sort of it's like walken in your

sleep drug it started to be afraid that waiting that's ana dias nurse makes my mouth dried somebody is always asking what times were not gone over the top in trench warfare was a four waved formation the first wave of rifleman and granted here's been an states moved out of slow pace with rifles held high court not even a minor fire interview find anything after seventy five meters a second wave followed and then waves three and then weigh for or intrude waves three and four replaced men killed or wounded you know i had spent months learning to hate the germans that i'm seeing faceless enemy beyond barbed wire and darkness names foreign funds chinese bosch for its charity now on

saw soldiers advancing an attack loaded with grenades and clutching mouser rifles with experimental and i saw it individual faces this was my first time in a killer be killed plesch i said to the sergeant i got ah but they're scared as i am sergeant whisper back now that the first clear shot i had was in a target it was a man he looked younger perhaps perhaps he had a girl at home like mine or a mother who wrote him that kind of letters my mother wrote me a i've tried to start thinking about it orders were orders i study the trembling in my head and to a careful a loan he lurched forward that warranted for him oh hell

i consider myself that what you shot me first if he is saying the first i shot him dead because he was he was my fault my miami course it was still it was it was a long time before i went to sleep that night without seeing in march forward i got over that feeling gradually know anything to do that's david tang men of topeka we'll hear more of his first person narrative world war one goes soldier right after the us from the university of kansas this is kansas public radio we're ninety one five lawrence and eighty nine nine acheson you can find us on the web a kansas public radio dot org or at your smart speaker two play kansas public radio support for k pr presents

on kansas public radio comes from the university of kansas transforming students and society through academics discovery service and spirit information about the possibilities of a k u education it's online educate you done ed you whether your passion is for unbiased in depth news beautiful music or fascinating conversations you can feed your passion right here and katie are gifts now a kansas public radio dot org slash support and thanks today un kbr presents world war one goes soldier written and performed by david ten men of topeka i'm reminded of the national world war one museum and memorial has a variety of activities and events going on this memorial day weekend including free admission for veterans and active duty military and half price admission for the public find out more about their

memorial day ceremony vintage military vehicles on display and flags honoring veterans killed by suicide all on their website the world war dot org and now we return to world war one the soldier by david kang won many dough boys myself included but only read about airplanes german airplanes armed with machine guns and small hand dropped grass cutter bombs food day and night in constant dreaded streams above our american positions some soldiers became hysterical felt helpless and defenseless one seeing or hearing the planes circling above and deliberately trying to kill him and lee well that tag over the top came out of the woods into a field of wheat crop poppies bloomed read as blood in that field for waves of rifleman move at a slow pace bayonets fixed rifles held a high court

has ordered not even fire mortar fire anything i was in the first wave that an enemy could be seen the german machine guns were completely hidden for this this was our boys first fight against german machine guns than those machine guns opened up mode us down absolutely like a shooting gallery countdown mode like grants but while the boys tried to charge a machine gun all alone out in the open of course the machine gun turned on a stream bills actually cutting in half one soldier killed by machine gun fire was not killed instantly he was offered first aid but said i'm done for say that someone who can help tell my mother died like a man official reports and messages are

restricted from using the following expressions all shot to pieces by machine gun fire men all exhausted suffered enormous losses why did the general's order us infantry men armed with rifles and bayonets to charge a machine guns men were constantly driven against german machine guns well placed with apple ammunition and with orders to hold the yankees back those general officers wanted to rush troops forward against enemy machine guns for irish against bullets hell might as well a vision busboys crossbows men were killed song hurt finally those officers saw they were sacrificing good evan tremendous certain death they learned to wait to clear the way for by using

our machine guns howitzers and artillery maybe just maybe they learned to value the lives of man under their command my platoon had fifty two man six only six men got across the first seventy five yards i was one of those six all the rest were killed wounded or pinned down kind to help you my mind detached among body kept going on along and the fight i can't think too much later that would have now at the foot of the hill that they want us knew how we got there was that lieutenant a machine gunner and me jump behind woodpile sticks or jump and shaken from enemy machine guns bullets struck by machine gunner in the head is how much fluid to the ground the top of his head cut off by machine gun bullets his death

instantaneous the lieutenant picked up the machine gun my mother will never find my grave he stood fighting until the enemy gunners who has targeted us a young chap of company have played badly wounded about ten yards from the water owner he pleaded no my canteen was empty but by dead soldier lay close with the county and underwater for that dialogue the lieutenant said oh you did but who could listen to that boy pleading order all are so i crawled grab the dead soldier's canteen came back to the wounded man during my hand

you were a regular guy and i'd meet holden is head of diane bodies last words if you're a regular guy those words worth dying for now though that the french town of santini came under american bombardment in a short time we can see the town and all the air was full of trees stones timber equipment bodies everything you can imagine all smashed up and whirling around with that there are sales kept right on going overhead and once steady screeching owl without limits six forty five am tanks came out of the woods escorted by infantry then nothing romantic their tanks look like coarse was hey wagons and the infantrymen look like pacemakers carrying rifles instead pitchforks and didi itself was surrounded by deep enemy dugouts there would have to be cleaned out my flame throwers

a french head flame throwers america a frenchman came loaded with two long pants each with a nozzle and a big sack of grenades when he spotted a dugout he'd go to the entrance and yell into get the hell out of their voice even as he was yelling he sent planes into the dugout many cost in a grenade you fell flat on the ground after the bang he checked of the dugout was on fire and then moved on to the next one as a marker up of any holdouts he was a daily be damned french frog the minute we moved closer to the town it to hell had broken loose i see a civilian refugees streaming down the road old and young and ox carts and horse drawn carriages on foot soldiers trudged along pushing baby carriages piled with household belongings and tied with gore old men old women potter long

children walking groups to terrify it wouldn't talk much hundred scary things in arms or in bundles on backs all looked terror stricken this one time on that a sergeant and to prisoners taken on an awful very well so in my storage i said no i saw him a few minutes later i asked him who took those prisoners back oh where the drop c disease they both died of heart failure so he was very sane there were staying at the front is the shelling artillery shells whistled speech hit with a devil red flashing the ground shaking explosion german high spoor says shell's send lead balls and steel fragments the size of railroad spikes through anything in their path

weapons ten teams wouldn't trump supporter and human flesh when shells exploded most soldiers took the advice of the french open their mouths wide while the shells exploded so their ear drums would burst yet someone to death anyway some others got knocked unconscious some troops directly were cut in half others had arms and legs ripped off in a few that they disappeared shot to on recognizable pieces reported and death records as nothing left to bury some died simply from concussion found lying without a scratch as if sleeping they're both shatter in the insides turned the soup with this one shell exploded close tore up the freshly made grave its own most of the soldier's body and severed the head we reburied the poor lad know where could we find his identification tag all we knew was that he was an american

how many american bodies in france got mixed up in their removal to the large senators or lacked identification entirely no money no party has braved under fire we were caught in a two hour artillery barrage wisdom and shells are we give babies a travel faster than sound no chance to duck if a whiz bang lands close to you you don't have to listen anymore and your folks back all get a telegram i shook it trembled my teeth and mouth chattered one step right once that blair and michelle lanz on new orleans' close dirt and stones might barry you in the trench in the foxhole or in the dugout live or die by luck by chance story so flat on the ground

no safety from shells anywhere on the frontline if lucky that shell doesn't drop on you from nobody his brave under shell fire and then the german artillery at our trench coal we sought protection everywhere fallen flat on our faces were jails comes screeching down that was our only protection we just have to lie flat wondered if the next show is going to get us cause i was so frightened myself but once sergeant cool as a cucumber gave me immense help one shell had landed on a hole where two chaps rely on her screen whether they were horribly cut up but not dead a horse tied to a tree was killed instantly i think it was a poor animal and screamed oh ah ah i can't describe how fear can overtake a person you will just have to imagine it being bombarded with big chills sure is demoralizing

some of those get down on her knees now andre the funny part is the ones that are praying now the fellows who are always so prof and foul mouth back in camp funston now the danger being snuffed out they have become meek and pure wow what a change comes over a man when death is all around him three brackets killed fifty men are trapped or left men without legs or arms a shell landed fifty feet away from us we scrambled back into a foxhole another shows come in we are we will always wonder up flat square and shell oil over the right to direct hit a column of mud and rags blood and brains and muscles shot in the air and sprayed us from head to foot there was nothing more laughter those two men who have been there then and tomato from one gets a brick wall no safety from shells anywhere

most of us were scared stiff to the point that some boys have diarrhea i had diarrhea to it because the constant shelling and i could not stop it going so so it just came out of trickled down into the cause of a leg wrappings the stool lives that my knees soon we could all smell this stool odor from each other there was nothing to be ashamed of officer or enlisted man it happened to all of us we didn't talk about it when the shelling stopped well some men pull their pants down to expose and try to scoop out from around their knees for beside the odor it was very uncomfortable nobody is brave under shell fire another show was calm and weirdest one drop the the wounded arrived in pain on the dirt floor amid a jumble of shovels impacts and drop

rifles boats to slice through the dirt parapet above shooting sprays of soul into the president not to do something against the rear trench wasn't shocking burst some poor devils were buried under the collapse dugout the faint sounds and stirrings of man buried alive and they caved in banks were terrible st louis no other and we couldn't reach lou cannon i got wounded men together and started up a hill on a big shell fell between ice on them blown into the air one soldier recently guess plunged toward us dollar and jokey drowning way we flung his body in the dead weather i watched his white eyes riding in his face and heard every jolt of the wagon blood come gargling from is fraught corrupt and lungs how i could use all the paper in the world telling our each man got wounded or killed sure

is horrible it's something impossible to express lieutenant i had overpower thrill for maniac from shell shock terrible cases of shell shock one particular soldier his face partly crushed in and blackened by the blast of a close shall explosion could hardly be dragged away his insane shrieks were outbursts followed by thy howling peals of laughter a laugh to make your skin creeped followed by whaling and tears the soldier had gone totally insane another time i volunteered to go on night patrol inside no man's land called fear of the unknown had me in its grip so yes terrorists

on patrol with angels sound triggered german players then machine gun fire then death as certain as initially gallery suddenly one shot that hundred shots broke loose and that is where burson around an overdose players turned the night to day there was a terrific explosion right beside me are turned in lieutenant li they're groaning as lego a bloody pulp a potato masher grenade hit me i wanted to shoot the casino germans tissue that the troll broke oh i could see our man running back out of the wire strangely enough i i did not myself think of running away and i was not even shake it now not not that i was thinking of those things at the time i don't know that i was thinking of all it was a case of being a hot tight corner and somehow or other there was no time to think on the terrible firing continued a short distance from me

was a shell hole or old lieutenant enter the shell hole as the flare one outlet but lieutenant on my back and started crawling through the wire toward our treasures the noise of firing covered my calling until the fire recently scott every noise sounded like loud drumbeat would it it seemed to me that crackling grass under my hand could be heard in brilliant a week we had to get out lieutenant was bleeding heavily soaking my back in blood i was afraid he would bleed to death he weighed hundred eighty pounds and i was only hundred thirty five how it was hard keeping his slippery body doused on my back the lieutenant big ollie may save yourself only one arrest i was afraid he'd go unconscious then germans kept looking for us in small groups if they

discovered as i would not be taken prisoner a lieutenant asked me to stay by him if i was killed he wanted to die with me gosh oh gosh i slowly began to crawl the lieutenant's slipping and sliding off my back closer to safety i tried to stand and lift the lieutenant about waste time to be grown each time who i was standing on his toe no wonder i couldn't lift him no laundry groaned in pain after that i carried him to our trends addressed his won't and put eternity above his knee to stop blood loss he went unconscious later on i learned his leg was amputated at the knees but lieutenant lived well another time for us occupied a

small unfinished dugout and so small the turnover was impossible when of cooties bothered me so much i crawled further down the steps and heard someone breathing and said hussein me and heightened here than here almost two days four i'm afraid the cialis god's truth this war is nearly all knowing i'd been through the whole thing you'd never before been intolerable the helmet on the whole i wanna go home back to my family and i know i know if i go one more time over the top do you want to hear

every shorter at the moment of battle trembles is afraid and wishes he could escape is sick of the whole business i crawled back up the steps and never said a word about that fellow hiding in a dugout below and after being shelled shot at near killed i watched green replacements inner first heavy shell fire someone googled gallop around in all directions instead of getting undercover and taking it as it came but alanna bet that day as old timers sized up those fresh you guys we placed bets how long they last and the front lines one man i bet would last more today is a bad man was killed first crack of the box chances

are he's eighteen whenever the top of the twenty i'm guess show has long stood and never touched me a felon too shallow dugout just the hand the dugout was blown up my last sensations of floating up minus my left leg back to earth hospital apprentice assuredly i was all there how he was writing all their own feeling pretty good but if i ever and do aerobics what the last seventeen days have battered in and out of me i should be hillary having me he's your

brother the hospital after that attack i saw thousand or more of our american soldiers with every conceivable kind of womb including bodies gas burned so badly they were black somewhat legs or arms blown away somewhat i've shot out many with chins don't shrapnel cause most wound shells burst into a thousand jaded bits of metal that destroyed muscles for vessels severed nerves or men were wounded in the mine and shaking her crying her towering in the polls the grip of shell shock some wounded men appeared interested in their wombs some paid no attention others were horrified and wanted to die one thousand tried to shield himself but the shell of crippled them unbroken his revolver boys with shattered legs they give their comrades shook me please

mayor chuck schumer my shoe i will always remember how they pleaded the saddest sight though was seeing man badly guest running and squirming in agony cast inaction in unit reports little describe the gruesome effects of this hideous warfare we buried our dead and three to fifteen with a blanket or attend campus wrapped around the body really constructed crosses were set up on the grave their names written on him or a rifle was stuck at the head of the grave with the soldiers helmet on and his name i on the chin strap each soldier was buried with one dog tag around his neck for future identification someone buried on no personal effects were removed sent to graves registration and then sent to next of kin i

had become as hardened as the rest my nervous nervous ragged strain a weekend grabbing complaining about everything hunger cold fatigue and still we split up a last puff of a cigarette less dinner chewing tobacco passed around chair the last can of corn beef willie this week we're all buddies water was most precious yet again tuna water got passed around the fellow who had water would drink glasses sure would cost of guys insisted he drink first what was the saying with smoked meats or what have you god never could create human being so i'm selfish so devoted and so tender as my buddies i have memories of loyalty of comradeship which still linger memories deeply implanted in my

soul van at ten thirty on november eleven nineteen eighteen several shells hit one soldiers killed it was just another nasty cold morning and i felt like was going to snow close to eleven o'clock we prepared to attack boys were checking their rifles and fixed bayonets we moved for about a hundred feet when well we waited we heard nothing after months of guns and shells roaring exploding to every thing stop quiet all that once was so otherworldly the quietness was too much we couldn't believe it was truly what we were lost without the noise

down the line became a soldier he was telling everybody the armistice had been signed i said oh what's an artist as a nobody knew to me it sounded like some kind of machine the other boys around me didn't know what many of there when the official word came a peace treaty had been signed and that's what artist to cement the war was over but i couldn't believe over the war was over and that i returned to america feeling let down disappointed over something just what that something is i do not know what i wish i did oh it's it's not true that the boys won't talk about the war now but not because the war is something not to be thought of the boys would talk is the question there would listen that they do not they interrupt your porch oh

right or change that's juxtaposed to chechnya right people at home hearing what i've seen and done in banter expected me to come back hard brutal kallus care let's try it mother wanted me to be like i was like i had been before the war and over there either at seventy eight men one morning first ruben iran's trinkets letters it takes the beast i don't want a man died sitting aren't really it was impossible to straighten out and difficult to date hold deep enough to cover him on more than one side tried to straighten the body stand on the legs that it would come up finally compromise but bearing the upper body and let the

legs stick up for across and hang the helm and a gas mask on the legs of like a human cross the border big man in a small hole we would step on his level and then the party ended enough to make him fit in all the dead were shot up in a great variety of ways and it was not pleasant still i never wasted water over there washing my hands and i ate my rationale bread and meat each and every time they might be billie jean many soldiers return to family married had jobs were successful others suffered permanent shellshock and never recovered never left the horrors of war being waged in our mind every battle's survivor was forced to find his own separate peace families of the fallen

soldier were left without their son brother husband and often without a body to bury war was a scar empty chair the suffering heart and in some ways and i hear the warden and to leave my friends most of share and share like that you know everything about each other i can't describe the tenderness and shared love we felt twenty years later nineteen thirty eight oak alarm soldiers sat down beside me and we began to talk we we we we talk about what a terrible thing the war was like meet miss the comradeship of fellows fighting and there were tears in his eyes and the choke sob and his goodbye then i'm less than arab origin launch quote

and i watched as he walked away memories flooded back memories of loyalty in college here parkland deeply deeply planted in my soul all those men around who are broker if they're going to school oh well i'm i'm finished talking about this year just you just have to imagine or

is it it is roy says suppose then at an awe this is all fall

says our all is the law to use paint is all this is this is you've been

listening to world war one goes soldier written and performed by david kleinman of topeka this first person narrative was recorded at the damn lindquist studio the national world war one museum and memorial in kansas city has a wide variety of activities and events going on this memorial day weekend including free admission for veterans and active duty military as well as half price general admission for the public a memorial day ceremony will take place at ten o'clock monday morning with a tall lean on the bells at noon nearly twenty vintage military vehicles will be on display on the grounds including a vietnam era huey helicopter finally one hundred forty us flags will be on display calling attention to the one hundred veterans who were lost to suicide every week you can find a complete list of memorial day events and activities at their website the world war dot org i'm a mac entire k pr presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas