Amazing History of the American Soldier Experience in WWI

[Major Z]

It took me quite a while to get through it, but I just recently finished Pershing's Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I by Richard S. Faulkner. This is an extremely thorough work on many aspects of the American Soldiers' experiences leading up to and all the way through the combat phase of the First World War. What makes this book unique is that each aspect he goes over is documented by hundreds of personal accounts of the men that went through that time. I have no idea how many pieces of correspondence Mr. Faulkner collected, but it must be a lot! Mr. Faulkner covers everything you can imagine, ranging from selection in the draft, how they got to the camps, the equipment and training they received, their travel overseas, and their roles in combat and support. He even covers the often forgotten experiences of occupation duty. I was thoroughly impressed by the depth of material used throughout the chapters. You will get a personal sense of how these enlisted men and officers lived, trained, fought and unfortunately died. You'll learn about daily life in a training camp, what they ate, how they kept up morale, and even how they interacted later with French citizenry. If you the reader wants to know every angle possible for the overall American Soldier experience, please find a copy of this great work. It is 784 pages (included footnotes and citations) so it is probably not a quick read. That was the only downside for me. But, how else could so much material be presented in any lesser way? I found their experiences could compare to what my Army experience was like many decades later. This a fantastic read and I highly recommend it if you want to know more about this aspect of WWI history.

[M24 Chaffee]

Sounds like a cool book! Thanks for the tip!

 

Frank