Guarding the Border: The Military Memoirs of the Ward Schrantz, 1912-1917

Introduction

Ward Loren Schrantz of Carthage, Missouri, was a newspaper journalist, author, and historian, but he also faithfully served his country as a soldier for nearly half a century. He began his unusual military career in the Missouri National Guard in 1909, then joined the regular army three years later. Discharged in 1914 after serving on the Mexican border, he returned to the Missouri National Guard. He went back to guard the border once more from 1916 to 1917. During World War I, Schrantz led troops in combat as a captain in command of Company A, 128th Machine Gun Battalion, in the Thirty-fifth Division . As a reserve infantry officer, he endured the military doldrums of the 1920s and the stagnation of the depression in the 1930s. He watched as Americans ignored a growing fascist menace, but after Pearl Harbor, despite being in his fifties, he made a minor but significant contribution toward the liberation of Europe by commanding a troop transport on numerous trips overseas during World War II. He finally retired from the army reserve in 1950 with the rank of colonel. Schrantz began his soldiering during the twilight years of the old frontier army, a time when few disputed a continued role for horse cavalry . He ended it in the atomic age, when the possibility of nuclear war raised questions about the viability of any conventional forces in future conflicts. Schrantz’s service took him from the fields of Missouri to Texas in the turbulent days of the Mexican Revolution to the trenches of France with their machine guns, barbed wire, and mud. Throughout it all, the highly literate Schrantz recognized the unique nature of his army Introduction 2 Introduction service, and at various times he recorded his experiences while in uniform . He assembled the typed reminiscences of his travels in the United States and throughout the world in several large notebooks, forming a record that provides an important witness to the American armed services in transition. One of the most valuable portions of Schrantz’s memoirs documents his service in the United States’ regular army (1912–1914) and the National Guard (1915–1917). Although both organizations were relatively large at the time (approximately 100,000 and 120,000 men, respectively), few enlisted men who served during that period had the opportunity or inclination to document their military careers in significant detail. Those who fought Native Americans in the 1870s and 1880s and the Spanish in 1898 left behind a number of narratives, while American soldier “doughboys ” who served in World War I wrote and published many memoirs. There is a noticeable lack of soldier reminiscences during this “middle” period of 1898–1917, however. Ward Schrantz, on the other hand, filled dozens of pages with a record of what it was like to be a private in the regular army and a noncommissioned officer in the National Guard during the crucial years leading up to America’s entry into the “Great War.” In addition, Schrantz had the good fortune, as he saw it, to be assigned to the Texas-Mexico border—not a quiet, remote army post or mundane recruiting station but a volatile region where he experienced potential danger on a daily basis. He enjoyed a wide range of experiences on the border. He helped guard El Paso, watched battles between Mexican revolutionaries , served with the provisional “Second Division” in Texas City while his comrades were fighting in the port city of Veracruz, and, as a member of the Missouri National Guard, guarded the border while General John J. “Black Jack” Pershing chased the Mexican revolutionary Francisco “Pancho” Villa. Schrantz extensively documented all of these activities in his reminiscences. Ward Schrantz’s writings are significant for a number of other reasons , however. Although he was not a professional writer, Schrantz’s education and small-town newspaper experience allowed him to craft a wellwritten and entertaining narrative. Because there is no evidence that he prepared his memoir for publication, the Missourian wrote in an honest , unpretentious, and unassuming style, with extensive detail, vivid de- Introduction 3 scriptions, and occasional humor. Although he did not hesitate to criticize his fellow enlisted men, his superiors, and even civilians, Schrantz also included self-deprecating remarks and anecdotes. For example, Schrantz freely admitted an occasional twinge of fear, or at least anxiety, as he performed lonely nighttime sentry duty or faced down a group of armed Mexican revolutionaries along the...