Day 16, February 14th

I continued working on Box 5. I found a couple of pamplets that discussed gas warfare, as well as trench warefare. Those were the two big hallmarks of the Great War, because they were such new ways to fight in a way that still believed in the Romantic Napoleonic way of fighting. I wonder what it must have been like for the soldiers who read these pamplets to get a sense of what they were going to face.

I looked up the online orbituary of Colonel Richard W. Watson, the man behind the collection.

http://post141indian...p?id=2&number=2

He was born in October 1878, and died in February 1961- living for 82 years. He was in the National Pennsylvania Guard starting with the Spanish American War. Richard Watson had been a laywer, but it looks like after he got discharged he never engaged in an active bar association. His passion had been for military and the American Legion, apparently, which definitely showed. He got married and had his son pretty late in life, which was pretty interesting for the era. In general, Richard Watson came from a lawyer family(law is pretty big because of the county courthouse), and lived a life where he was concerned with civic affairs and the life. Not a big showy life, but that's what I love about public history- learning about hte people who DON'T make the history textbooks, and the stories they tell.

82 years. I could not imagine what it would be like to have been alive for 82 years; the kinds of things you must have seen in such a long life. I guess, fate willing, I'll be able to answer the question

Day 17, February 15th

I read a letter that Richard Watson had sent to his father from France, dated November 24th, 1918. The copy wasn't that good, so one of the volunteers created a better copy by lightening it up so that you could read the text easier. The letter was fascinating to me. It was written because they had been told that they should write letters to their dads for Christmas.The war was officially over, but they weren't in any way getting sent home- Watson explained to his father that they were still much left to do, such as making sure that the treaty got enforced. When I thought of Armistice Day, I kind of figured that all of the soldiers involved pretty much just got to go home at once. It was surpring to learn that these guys still had a job to do. I could not imagine going to war, seeing an Armistice signed, and still having to stay around to help clean up for weeks or even months afterward.

Here's a quote from the letter:

"The war is practically over, but peace has not been signed and the conquered territories must be policed and garrisoned for many months in order to enforce our terms, and you may be sure the 28th will do its share of the work. Our hopes ran high for a few days and visions of home, turkey, pumpkin pie and Christmas trees, with all the comforts of civilization, fairly dazzled us and I fear caused many a pang of homesickness throughout the A.E.F.. But our dreams were rudely shattered by actualities and we are resigned to the inevitable."

People back then...when they wrote letters, it's amazing the amount of passion they had.