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137 “Bad eNough at the Best” As they left the line near the end of October 1918 and marched to Valmy, James McCan of Quanah recalled that his comrades were “the worst looking bunch of men you ever saw,” and about “half a dozen could barely talk above a whisper as our lungs were full of gas.” From Valmy, the division marched southeast toward the American First Army, to which they had been assigned. The division stopped for a rest day near Thiacourt on November 2, but the next day many soldiers could hear artillery at the front more distinctly than at any time since they had left the Aisne River a week earlier, which led to speculation they would soon be back at the front. Soon, the division arrived at Bar-Le-Duc near the southern edge of the Argonne Forest, and began preparations to return to the line. By this point, the 36th Division was short 23 percent of its officers and 34 percent of its soldiers. Replacements poured in, filling each company to nearly 200 soldiers while veterans received new uniforms and fresh equipment. Before returning to the front, however, news came on November 7 that the German high command sought an armistice. While waiting to learn the outcome of the negotiations, the soldiers trained in reducing machine gun positions and “open warfare,” and Captain Spence believed the division would return to the front in better shape than when it first entered combat. Four days later, on November 11, many soldiers heard the sound of artillery at the front steadily increasing in volume. That caused more than a few soldiers to believe the Germans had broken off the armistice negotiations, although finally at 11:00 am, “the bombardment ceased and all was quiet” as the armistice took effect. It was none too soon for some members of the regiment, one of whom heard 7 138 TheY CALLeD TheM SOLDIeR BOYS rumors that General Headquarters planned to use them as “shock troops” near Verdun. Once the news hit home that evening the soldiers celebrated and “serious faces that had been drawn for weeks, relaxed and gave vent to smiles and laughter.” The nearby village of Loup-le-Petit “woke up” that evening, bedecked with lights and serenaded by music from the 142d Infantry band. One soldier, Wayne Wheeler of Company G, wrote home from the village of Conde that “of course we were not allowed to shoot up the town but we celebrated.” Oddly enough, Captain Spence noted a “sneaking sense of disappointment in some quarters that the division was not again to enter the lines and show what it felt itself capable of doing when properly equipped and supplied.”1 The next day, “the solemn tones of a funeral dirge came floating into Regimental headquarters” causing confusion among several of the officers, who were not sure where the music came from and several went outside to see what was happening. A group of the soldiers had decided to “bury the Kaiser.” In a solemn procession of soldiers and townspeople, led by a soldier dressed as a priest and the regimental band, a group carried the remains of the “Kaiser.” The procession wended its way to a nearby bridge, and the “remains” were “raised tenderly to the banister and at the proper time were gracefully dropped into the creek.” As soon as that occurred, the regimental band “hit up a lively tune and amid cheers” the soldiers “retuned to quarters feeling they had expressed themselves.”2 Other men quickly wrote home about the armistice. For example, Wayne Wheeler wrote that “the armistice saved us from going back to the front, but we were not so disappointed.” Another man wrote honestly to a friend, “I am feeling good since the war is over. I had all I wanted of that front when it closed.” Willie Carpenter of the Machine Gun Company wrote of the armistice: “I sure was glad when God looked down on us and said stop. They are whipped and there was a crowd of glad boys and I know that you were too. You should have heard us shooting guns and ringing bells.”3 Several days after the armistice, the division received orders to proceed to Training Area 16, near Tonnerre. The march began on November 18, although the last units did not arrive until Thanksgiving, in part because of 3,600 additional replacements who joined the division during the march. In an effort to keep...

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