My Uncle Carroll Hosbrook’s World War I letters include one written from France on Nov. 11, 1918, now a full century ago.  History will honor these American Doughboys, the many thousands who joined General John Pershing’s American Expeditionary Force to secure victory.

Uncle Sam was calling them—farm boys from Iowa and Maine, mechanics from Michigan and Maryland, carpenters from California and Connecticut, teachers from Texas and Tennessee—to leave home and go to war.  Going to war was a gradual experience that started with a spirited patriotism and ended with the reality of war, death, and sacrifice.  Uncle Carroll’s first and last letters define this contrast.

Camp Sherman, Chillicothe, Ohio—May 6, 1918

Dear Grandma,

I was very glad to get your letter.  Well, I went out on the range this morning and fired the machine gun for the first time.  And it made my ears ring as if someone hit me.  This afternoon I got my second inoculation and another vaccination.  Then I got my rifle, cartridge belt, and pack.  This inoculation was bigger but it has not made me sick (yet).  Maybe that will come later.  I’ll get seven more before I get in the war.

You said sister Harriet had the headache.  That is nothing new.  Let her come up here and take some of the stuff I got to take, and it would cure her headaches.  I got an awful bad cold now.  I haven’t any girl up here, so get a real pretty one down there to write to me.  Don’t worry about me, I will take care of myself.  That shot in the back is starting to work on my knees.  They feel like they are going to fall off.

Carroll Hosbrook, 324^th Machine Gun Battalion   

Carroll had never been away from home and his light-hearted sense of adventure was still intact as he crossed the Atlantic (“a wonderful trip”).  But by September Carroll had seen action and was in a British field hospital in France, the somber reality of war wrapping itself around him as he mused over inscriptions on belt buckles taken from dead German soldiers that said “Gott Mitt Uns,” meaning “God is with us.”  He didn’t think so, knowing that “Austria has given in to President Wilson’s peace terms” and that German soldiers “were whipped, fed up with war, but too stubborn to give up.”

Monday, Nov. 11, found Pvt. Carroll Hosbrook sitting on the steps of a bombed-out church, once again writing a letter home to his grandmother.

Somewhere over here—Nov. 11, 1918

Dear Grandma,

This has been some day in this town.  We got news this morning that the Huns had given up at 5 a.m.  There is a big church here which is partly destroyed, but it has a bell still intact, and it has been ringing since noon.  It is now after 6, and it is still ringing.  It may ring all night.

The Yanks sure gave the Huns a good hot chase.  I guess they will think twice before they start out to take the world again.  I would like to tell a lot more, but it might be censored.  Just wait and I’ll be walking in your door some nice clear day and can tell you what I have seen of this great war.  I never thought that one’s part would be such a small part in this war.  But I found out it is true when you say you are going to do your bit—it is a little bit.  We are going to move out in two or three days, going closer to the coast and maybe to England.  The English want to see us because we have been fighting with their boys, and are wanted to take part in a big parade there.  You will read something very great about us in history.  I remain as ever,

Pvt. Carroll Hosbrook

Carroll’s letter was written in the French village of Corbie, just a few miles from where the Armistice was signed in a railroad car in Compiégne.  Carroll Hosbrook was a very ordinary American who fought for his country, the one that you and I have inherited and must come together to keep.  On this 100^th anniversary of the World War I Armistice, may we never forget these soldiers and their sacrifices.  Each did “their bit.”  God bless America.

Dr. James F. Burns is a retired professor at the University of Florida.

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