Private Peat

E-text prepared by Rick Niles, Josephine Paolucci, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)
Private Peat Still smiling though his right arm is useless
NEW YORK GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS

1917 The Bobbs-Merrill Company

To the boys who will never come back

In this record of my experiences as a private in the great war I have tried to put the emphasis on the things that seemed to me important. It is true I set out to write a book of smiles, but the seriousness of it all came back to me and crept into my pages. Yet I hope, along with the grimness and the humor, I have been able to say some words of cheer and comfort to those in the United States who are sending their husbands, their sons and brothers into this mighty conflict. The book, unsatisfactory as it is to me now that it is finished, at least holds my honest and long considered opinions. It was not written until I could view my experiences objectively, until I was sure in my own mind that the judgments I had formed were sane and sound. I give it to the public now, hoping that something new will be found in it, despite the many personal narratives that have gone before, and confident that out of that public the many friends I have made while lecturing over the country will look on it with a lenient and a kindly eye.
To my wife, who has helped me greatly and who has been my inspiration in this, as in all else, I should have inscribed this volume had she not urged the present dedication. But she prefers it as it is, for the boys who will never come back gave themselves for her and for all sister-women the world over.
H.R.P.