United States or Micronesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When they arrived at Bordeaux on August 21st they went at once to Paris to be fitted out with French uniforms, as General Pershing had given them all the rank of military privates, and ordered that they should wear the regulation khaki uniforms with the addition of the red Salvation Army shield on the hats, red epaulets, and with skirts for the women.
The officers paced up and down the lines, straightening them out and inspecting clothing and equipment as they went along. Then their captain appeared on the scene and proceeded to make them a short address. "Men," he said, "the regiment is going to be inspected by General Pershing to-day, and I hardly need to tell every one of you to be right up on his toes.
It was a brave deed, most gallantly done. I thank you in the name of the army. Your names will be cited to-morrow in the orders of the day and I shall personally bring the matter to the attention of General Pershing." When Tom Bradford found himself racing toward the woods, the only thought in his mind was to put as great a distance as possible between himself and his would-be executioners.
Thanksgiving Day, 1918, was celebrated in the most befitting manner at the American Army headquarters in France. After Bishop Brent's benediction, a band concert was given. General Pershing then addressed his victorious army as follows: "Fellow soldiers: Never in the history of our country have we as a people, come together with such full hearts as on this greatest of all Thanksgiving days.
At the time of the armistice the S. O. S. reached a numerical strength in personnel of 668,000, including 23,000 civilian employees. From the first, Pershing had been determined that the American Expeditionary Force should ultimately operate as an independent unit, although in close coöperation with the Allies.
"General Pershing," Foch has said, "wished to have his army concentrated, as far as possible, in an American sector. The Argonne and the heights of the Meuse were a sector hard to tackle. So I said to him: 'All right; your men have the devil's own punch. They will get away with it. Go to it." And they went! That was the famous St. Mihiel salient.
Hill street he thought of as older, quieter, more thoughtful and sedate; a book-loving, home-loving sort of a girl; mildly reproving but secretly admiring her sister street, Broadway. She took pride, he thought, in Pershing Square, a restful spot in the roar of the downtown thoroughfares that was like a cool hand on a fevered brow, a kind thought for others, a touch of unselfishness.
After passing through many villages crowded with our troops we came to the headquarters of the American Expeditionary forces. We found General Pershing in a long brick building two or three stories high, facing a wide white parade ground. The place had been used evidently as a barracks for French soldiers in peace times, and was fitted to the uses of our army.
General Pershing, to whom was now entrusted the military fortunes of the American army abroad, was an officer fifty-seven years old, who had undergone wide military and administrative experience in Cuba and the Philippines; he had been given extraordinary promotion by President Roosevelt, who had jumped him from the rank of captain to that of Brigadier General; and he had been selected to lead the punitive force dispatched in pursuit of Villa in the spring of 1916.
The United States Marine Corps, the efficient fighting, building, and landing force of the navy, has won imperishable glory in the fulfilment of its latest duties upon the battlefields of France, where the marines, fighting for the time under General Pershing as a part of the victorious American Army, have written a story of valor and sacrifice that will live in the brightest annals of the war.
Word Of The Day