Word: front
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Dates: during 1910-1919
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Before this reaches you I shall be at the front. I regret that it will not be with my own. They are wonderful, and Europe is breathing a new air because of them. They have the vision--and the dreams of old men are coming true. I wish I could tell you the great pride and faith and elation the recognition of their spirit gives us. To be an American is today the proudest thing in the world. But even when one is not fighting as one of them--even though he wears another color, he is fighting with...
...with such emotions that I go to the front. Think of me as having believed something passionately enough not to have accepted rejections, as having found a place for myself when it was refused me time and again, as going into the fire with head up and laughing lips because I am an officer of France and an American. And if I am killed don't call me "poor fellow." I shall deserve better than that...
...debris cleared away. I saw a meat market starting again, the people passing in and out through a hole in the wall, the whole corner of the building having been sheared off. I saw a clothing store again in operation--in what appeared to be a booth, the whole front of the place having been blown out--oh, it's pitiful to see the way these poor people come back--pitiful and yet almighty inspiring...
...pass from here, on the Marne, to the present front on the Vesle, is a mighty interesting trip. I've been over that twice now, both times by daylight, so I had a good chance to observe. In many of the towns things are being cleared up by the returning civilian and French engineer units, roads put back in shape, bridges being rebuilt, etc., so that they are less depressing in appearance than a town is when first taken back--after German habitation and allied bombardment. The country roads, too, are now in good shape, but everywhere there are signs...
...front it's even worse, for there there is often no chance to straighten things out--and material lies scattered everywhere, dead horses lie along the roads, often still harnessed to the wagons or caissons they were drawing away, and, worse yet, men, too, sometimes lie unburied for several days. But there is no time, often, for any other course. One fights until he is weary beyond words. He digs trenches and mans them; he carries back the wounded; he breathes poisoned gas and utters more poisonous oaths; he sleeps on and in the ground like a beast; eats what...