Mack Moore's new book, A Doughboy Goes Over There and Back: A World War I Story, is coming out just in time for Armistice Day. Moore interviewed his grandfather during the 1970s before his death. The result is an insightful book that shows the reader what it was like to prepare for and fight in the Great War through his grandfather's eyes.
Carroll P. Brown, Moore's grandfather, went from being a 17-year-old schoolboy at Wichita High School to becoming a guardsman and eventually a private in the U.S. Army. He trained in Wichita and later at Camp Doniphan in Oklahoma before being sent overseas. He was just an ordinary young man who, by the fate of his birth, was cast into the crucible of war. In many respects, his experience of going to war is representative of the service of millions of others who fought and contributed to the end of the conflict.
Brown served with many other Kansans in Company I of the 137th Infantry and was part of the 35th Division. He fought in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive and was awarded the Purple Heart, due to injuries from that battle. Brown returned home from the war and moved on to the next stage of his life.
When he was older, almost two decades removed from the war, Brown and a friend decided to form a club of Wichita men who had served together in the war. In 1935, 49 men met and started the Wichita Last Man's Club. The members pledged to meet every year on Armistice Day to commemorate the part they played in that war. The last man living was to drink a toast to all his deceased comrades-in-arms. That last man, Harold Malone, died in 1995. They are all gone now, but not the history and the service they gave.
A Doughboy Goes Over There and Back: A World War I Story can be purchased on Amazon this November.
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