Books As A Life Saver
Books are an essential lifesaving supply for soldiers
Title: Books As A Life Saver
Author: Ellen M. DuBois
Article:
I cannot take credit for writing this, for I am only sharing
with you something I found today. It is a very old page, worn
and yellowed, from "The New Republic" dated December 8, 1917.
What struck me about this article are two things: 1. The letter
from the gentleman, and 2. The extreme importance of books to
soldiers overseas. The article states that the two most
important things soldiers desired were "tobacco and BOOKS". It
seems that then, just as now, reading helped folks get through
the most adverse, frightening and challenging situations by
giving the mind something other than their fear or pain to focus
on. I cannot even imagine the terror experienced in battle and
how these soldiers kept their sanity about them. I do know that
reading played a significant role in the matter.
I will now share with you this newspaper story. It is a chunk of
history; a piece of time captured on brittle paper that I was
fortunate enough to find within the pages of, yes, you guessed
it, a very old book.
December 8, 1917 THE NEW REPUBLIC V
"Who Thought of It- a Soldier?"
A LETTER FROM A CIVIL WAR VETERAN
"...I should like to meet some of the gentlemen in our company,
to thank them personally for what they have done for my grandson
who is in France. I cannot help thinking that it must have been
a soldier, a man who has been through the fighting mill as I
have, who initiated the idea of providing such good books, in so
convenient a Veteran. I fought from '62 to '65. I remember well
the craving I used to have for something good to read, something
to offset the loneliness and homesickness which was harder to
bear than all our physical hardships. It was so keen that we
used to pounce on scraps of newspaper we found. I tell you there
is nothing that will so well keep up the morale of fighting men
as good reading matter. They need it to keep their minds off
themselves. I know what our boys will go through; the mental
agonies are worse than anything else. Yet when my grandson at
the opening of the war enlisted in the Canadian Army, I was
glorified- that is the word!- to have him go. I sent with him
the blessing of God. I knew it was not love of adventure that
urged him on, but something of the same spirit with which we
boys were filled long ago. It is a spirit as old as
Christianity, the spirit of the Crusades. He longed to add his
boy's strength to the might of the world to teach an everlasting
lesson to those damned Potsdam animals, who were willing to
drench the world in blood without mercy, to further such a thing
as sordid commercial ambitions. He has fought at Ypres and Vimy.
He has been wounded twice. I have seen him again, and he is not
the same boy. He has seen, this child, more than I ever saw. War
is hell to him, as it was to us; he hates it with all his soul,
as I do. But he hates the Kaiser and his crew more, and he will
be there to the end. This, gentlemen, is not what I wished to
write to you. As you may appreciate, I feel this business
keenly, and my feelings carries me away oftentimes. When I saw
my grandson he asked me to write to you. Some time after he went
away I sent him as many of your little books as I could buy.
Before he received them, he and the men with him many a time
crouched for hours under heavy shelling- sometimes for days and
nights, without relief- waiting, waiting for attacks. They had
nothing to think of except what was going to happen to them. I
believe only a soldier can appreciate the mental condition of
men under such circumstances! The books I sent were a godsend to
him and his comrades. They constituted a sort of company
library, each man carrying several of the volumes in his
pockets, and he told me there was hardly a man in the company
who had not read every one of the books....I think it will be
interesting, and heartening, for you to know how greatly you are
helping to keep up the morale of the men who are enduring at the
front mental suffering that is beyond, truly beyond, the
imagination of us who stay at home."
_______________
This is the paper's response to the letter above:
We print this letter here with hesitation. We do it because we
believe it is a document which New Republic readers will care to
have seen, for we believe it is representative of the spirit of
American soldiers; we print it also because it brings home more
forcibly than we could ever hope to, the vital need of good
reading matter for our soldiers and sailors. Our troops had been
abroad a short time when General Pershing cabled for books. The
French Government, we have been told, in a list of articles men
should supply themselves with, put down books as one of the
first necessities. Soon we folks at home will hear the same call
from the men themselves. "Send me tobacco- and books!" That will
be the demand. If you have a boy in service-a brother- a son- a
friend- send him books if you send him anything. Abroad,
literally millions of pocket size volumes have been sent to men
in the trenches by the people of our allies. Put yourself in the
place of these men. They must sit still very often, while
undergoing the most frightful bombardment, waiting to attack or
to be attacked. Many men go mad because of this terrible mental
strain. What they need, above all else, is to keep their minds
normal. And when they go back into billets, after service at the
front, they demand books all the more. They have gone through
such frightful experiences that they require something to put
them in touch again with a sane world. REAL POCKET-SIZE VOLUMES
NEEDED
Remember this, when you send books. Your soldier boy cannot
carry an ordinary size book with him to the trenches. What he
needs are real pocket size volumes, so that he can carry several
in his pockets without inconvenience. Little Leather Library
volumes fill this need perfectly. They are 3 1/4" X 4 1/4" in
size, and are bound in genuine leather so that they will stand
the hardest wear. Over a million of them were sold before the
war to people who wished to read good books while travelling.
Since we entered the war, over two hundred thousand of these
volumes have been bought for soldiers and sailors as gifts.
If you have a boy or a friend in the service, make your choice
of the titles listed below. If they do not prove to be what you
expect, your money will be cheerfully refunded.
__________________________________________________ (Just a note.
The Little Leather Library Books sold for thirty cents, postage
prepaid.)
I hope you have enjoyed this piece of history, and have seen as
I have, the inherent value that reading has in our lives. It is
not merely entertainment. It is therapy, it is soothing, and
under the worst of circumstances, it can give us the strength
and the grounding that we need to pull through.
About the author:
Ellen M. DuBois, MA - Ms. DuBois is engaged and has a dog who
loves to critique her work. She is published in vol.2 of God
Allows U-Turns with her piece, "The Angel in the Dumpster". She
writes to touch the hearts of others. Please visit Writings of
the Heart, her award winning writer's resource site-
http://writingsoftheheart.homestead.com/index.html |
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