BATH — Patten Free Library will host a presentation and book signing by Bath resident Richard Rubin, author of “The Last of the Doughboys.” The talk is set for 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, June 25.
In 2003, 85 years after the armistice, it took Rubin months to find just one living American veteran of World War I. But then he found another, and another. Eventually he managed to find dozens, aged 101 to 113, and interview them.
A decade-long odyssey to recover the story of a forgotten generation and their Great War led Rubin across the United States and France, through archives, private collections, battlefields, literature, propaganda and even music. But at the center of it all were the last of the last, the men and women he met: a new immigrant, drafted and sent to France, whose life was saved by a horse; a Connecticut Yankee who volunteered and fought in every major American battle; a Cajun artilleryman nearly killed by a German aeroplane; an 18- year-old Bronx girl “drafted” to work for the War Department; the 16-year-old who became America’s last World War I veteran; and many, many more.
They were the final survivors of the millions who made up the American Expeditionary Forces, 19th century men and women living in the 21st century. Self-reliant, humble, and stoic, they kept their stories to themselves for a lifetime, then shared them at the last possible moment, so that they, and the World War they won might at last be remembered.
For more information, call Leslie Mortimer at 443-5141 extension 25.
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