Two days more brought us to the end of the bridgehead, where we were to take up our position. Division headquarters were in quite a large town called Montabaur, a name supposed to have been brought back with the early crusaders, i. e., Mount Tabor. Two castles overlooked the town, one in ruins, the other still used as an administrative building by the town authorities. The regiment was scattered through the surrounding small country villages.
Quarters for the men were good in comparison with what they had been used to. We were able to get washing facilities, food came up regularly, and now, for the first time, proper equipment. The men really enjoyed themselves for the first week or so. We had no trouble with fraternization. Our men had seen too many of their friends and relations killed to care to have anything to do with their late enemies. Like true Americans, they played with the children and flirted with the women whenever opportunity offered, but I never remember seeing any attempt to become familiar with the men.
Now that the work of fighting was over, uppermost in everyone's mind was the thought, "When do we get home?" The minuteman wanted to go back to ordinary life and his family. Time and again when I first returned to this country people would ask me what I thought the soldiers thought of this or that public question. I always replied truthfully that the men were so busy thinking about what a good place the United States was, how much better in their opinion than any of the European countries they had been to, that all they were interested in was, when will that transport leave.
In January I was ordered to Paris on sick leave. Shortly after, I sailed for home on the Mauretania and saw the mass of New York lift on the horizon, where my three children, who had practically forgotten me, were waiting. So ends the active participation of an average American with average Americans in the war.
CHAPTER XII
AFTERWARDS
"When old John Burns, a practical man,
Shouldered his rifle, unbent his brows,
And then went back to his bees and cows."
Bret Harte.
THE war is important to us in this country for what it accomplished directly: namely, it crushed the brutal military power of Germany, which threatened our ideal of civilization. We are, however, primarily civilians, not soldiers, and we are now going back to our "jobs," whatever they may be. For this reason I consider more important and more far-reaching than the military victory the lessons that it taught us and the effects it had on our citizens who participated. We must profit by these lessons and preserve the impulses that have been given to our people. If we do this the war will not simply be history, a past issue, a good job well finished; it will be a force that will be felt in this country through the generations to come for righteousness and a truer Americanism.