Читать книгу Soldiers of the Legion, Trench-Etched - John Bowe - Страница 4
FOREWORD
ОглавлениеLet the fastidious beware!
Here is no inviting account of a holiday in France.
The fighting author does not apologize for this terrible tale.
He has written literally, unglossed—no glamour, to
Help you understand the horrors of War and Prussian dreadfulness.
This gripping catalogue of catastrophe is by an American.
It contains romance, history—but absolutely no fiction.
It is a Love story. “Greater love hath no man than this....”
The National Society of Real Americans, in the shadow of
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, reminds Us that we have two Countries— United States and France.
“Jack Bowe,” in this, his second volume on War, presents a French viewpoint, rather than the British.
Cosmopolitan, born on the Scotch-English border, he
Knows no boundaries in
Freedom’s cause.
He has served in five regiments in France.
Wounded and spent, he has been restored in five different hospitals.
Evacuated from the front, twice, he has recuperated in
England and returned, on furlough, to America.
When he received “Certificate of Honor” for promoting the sale of Liberty Bonds.
Thrice decorated for distinguished conduct and valor in Europe,
He wears, also, three medals from service in the Spanish-American War and in the
Philippine Insurrection.
He has been marched through countless villages of France whose
Names he did not know—nor could he have pronounced them if he did.
Indian file, in black night, he has tramped hundreds of miles of
Trenches, which he could not have recognized in the morning.
He has endured twenty days and nights of continuous cannonade.
Experiencing every sort of military warfare on land, he has also survived a
Collision at sea.
He has been Mayor of his own town, Canby, Minnesota.
In Minnesota’s Thirteenth, he fought for the Stars and Stripes, being
Present at the capture of Manila, P. I., August 13, 1898.
Having represented, with honors, earth’s two greatest
Republics, he is still enrolled under the Tri-color of France, in that wonderful, international composite of
Individual fearlessness, the Foreign Legion.
“Where the blindest bluffs hold good, dear lass,
And the wildest tales are true.”
CHARLES L. MacGREGOR,
Collaborator.
