Blue Ravens: Historical Novel

12 Château-Thierry

› 12 ‹ Château-Thierry — — — — — — — 19 1 8 — — — — — — — Aloysius told the sergeant that early morning that he was a native artist in a union of three armies, the sum of three times his military service. The sergeant heard only the precious word “artist” and ordered my brother to latrine duty, to carve a crapper pit in the thicket near the river. Later we learned to be more incidental and never to linger for any reason over a hole in the earth. No soldier was ever at ease once he heard the stories about enemy snipers and strategic bowel movements. The American Expeditionary Forces was actually a union of three armies in combat with the enemy in France. The Germans probably never made that same distinction, other than the forces of the British, French, and Americans. The United States Regular Army, National Guard units from various states, and the National Army of volunteer and conscript soldiers were the union of three armies. The Regular Army was already in service and National Guard soldiers were activated as soon as war was declared with Germany. Drafted soldiers of the National Army were assigned to both the Regular Army and to train with various divisions of the activated National Guard for service in France. Private Ignatius Vizenor, our cousin, was drafted and assigned to train with the Thirtieth Division of the activated National Guard in North Carolina , South Carolina, and Tennessee. The division was trained for infantry combat that summer at Camp Sevier, South Carolina, a few weeks before we arrived at the nearby Camp Wadsworth in the National Army. Corporal Lawrence Vizenor was drafted at the same time as his brother and assigned to train with the Thirty-Third Division of the Illinois National Guard. The designation of military units mustered for service in the war was complicated, and we never fully understood why brothers, and our cousins , were drafted at the very same time and assigned to separate units. I was lucky to be assigned to the same military unit with my brother. We trained B l U e r a v e N s 113 and served together in combat, and we experienced the same miseries and stories of the war. Ignatius Vizenor completed training and was assigned to serve with the British Expeditionary Forces in combat near Saint-Quentin and Montbr éhain, France. Lawrence Vizenor was decorated for his service in the Battle of the Argonne Forest. Patch Zhimaaganish, John Razor, Louis Swan, Robert Fairbanks, and many of our relatives were never more than fifty miles away from each other during the war, but the distance was as great as life and death. The only thing we each had in common as soldiers was our combat heartache and hatred of the Germans. More than fifty natives were drafted from Becker County and the White Earth Reservation. Most natives served in combat infantry units. Only a few natives were assigned to serve in the same training and combat units, and others were selected for special military duty. William Heisler, for instance, was assigned to the Medical Corps. Romain Fairbanks was assigned to a Gas Regiment. Frederick Broker served as Blacksmith First Class. Several natives were drafted to serve in the Spruce Production Division in Oregon, Washington, and in France. Natives, of course, had real experiences in forests on reservations, and that was mostly watching the forests disappear in two generations. More than ten thousand soldiers cut and processed spruce trees for the war. Sitka spruce was light, strong, and durable to build military airplanes. During the civil war with natives thousands of white pine trees were cut on the White Earth Reservation and used to build houses in Chicago, not airplanes or boxcars for the First World War. Federal agents and timber companies were eager to cut down ancient trees for new houses in cities but not to build houses for native families on reservations. Natives and reservations were the means to an end in timber and in war. The First Pioneer Infantry was ordered to wait another few days on the banks of the Marne River. French camions, or trucks, were not available to transport the new soldiers to combat positions near the trenches at the front. The rumor spread that every truck was loaded with rations for the hungry horses. Actually the narrow roads were impassible, rutted, muddy, and crowded with horses, wagons, ambulances, artillery, and military equipment. Only two mess trucks arrived that afternoon with food for three companies...