Doughboys
In the time of World War I, it was known as ‘The Great War’ and ‘The War to End All Wars’. I imagine that the people who lived in those times could not imagine the consequence of that war. I imagine they couldn’t imagine that it was only the first ‘Great War’ in a series of wars that would be fought by each succeeding generation. And each generation would tire of the war and end them in treaties, compromises and not in defeat. The undefeated enemy would rear its head again down for the next generation to deal with.
World War I is largely overshadowed by World War II, the Vietnam War and now the Global War on Terrorism. The Korean War is the ‘forgotten war’ - just a war that was squished in between two larger wars and more public wars and hardly remembered.
World War I was not so much ‘the War to End All Wars’ but the War that Began a Century of Wars.
Things were not so much different then. People were certainly not different then. We just have bigger guns now and faster communications for the propagandist to use against us.
Prying Books has scanned and made available online a book of poems that were written by the Doughboys of World War I. The book is Rhymes of a Lost Battalion Doughboy and is beautifully illustrated and written. The poetry was written in 1919.
Go to Prying’s blog to find out more about the booklet and how to order it.
Doughboys Rhymes