hapter 42

A war comes always to someone else. In Salinas we were aware that the United States was the greatest

and most powerful nation in the world. Every American was a rifleman by birth, and one American

was worth ten or twenty foreigners in a fight.

Pershing’s expedition into Mexico after Villa had exploded one of our myths for a little while. We

had truly believed that Mexicans can’t shoot straight and besides were lazy and stupid. When our own

Troop C came wearily back from the border they said that none of this was true. Mexicans could shoot

straight, goddam it! And Villa’s horsemen had outridden and outlasted our town boys. The two

evenings a month of training had not toughened them very much. And last, the Mexicans seemed to

have outthought and outambushed Black Jack Pershing. When the Mexicans were joined by their ally,

dysentery, it was godawful. Some of our boys didn’t really feel good again for years.

Somehow we didn’t connect Germans with Mexicans. We went right back to our myths. One

American was as good as twenty Germans. This being true, we had only to act in a stern manner to

bring the Kaiser to heel. He wouldn’t dare interfere with our trade—but he did. He wouldn’t stick out

his neck and sink our ships—and he did. It was stupid, but he did, and so there was nothing for it but

to fight him.

The war, at first anyway, was for other people. We, I, my family and friends, had kind of bleacher

seats, and it was pretty exciting. And just as war is always for somebody else, so it is also true that

someone else always gets killed. And Mother of God! that wasn’t true either. The dreadful telegrams

began to sneak sorrowfully in, and it was everybody’s brother. Here we were, over six thousand miles

from the anger and the noise, and that didn’t save us.

It wasn’t much fun then. The Liberty Belles could parade in white caps and uniforms of white

sharkskin. Our uncle could rewrite his Fourth of July speech and use it to sell bonds. We in high

school could wear olive drab and campaign hats and learn the manual of arms from the physics

teacher, but Jesus Christ! Marty Hopps dead, the Berges boy, from across the street, the handsome one

our little sister was in love with from the time she was three, blown to bits!

And the gangling, shuffling loose-jointed boys carrying suitcases were marching awkwardly down

Main Street to the Southern Pacific Depot. They were sheepish, and the Salinas Band marched ahead

of them, playing the “Stars and Stripes Forever,” and the families walking along beside them were

crying, and the music sounded like a dirge. The draftees wouldn’t look at their mothers. They didn’t

dare. We’d never thought the war could happen to us.

There were some in Salinas who began to talk softly in the poolrooms and the bars. These had

private information from a soldier—we weren’t getting the truth. Our men were being sent in without

guns. Troopships were sunk and the government wouldn’t tell us. The German army was so far

superior to ours that we didn’t have a chance. That Kaiser was a smart fellow. He was getting ready to

invade America. But would Wilson tell us this? He would not. And usually these carrion talkers were

the same ones who had said one American was worth twenty Germans in a scrap—the same ones.

Little groups of British in their outlandish uniforms (but they did look smart) moved about the

country, buying everything that wasn’t nailed down and paying for it and paying big. A good many of

the British purchasing men were crippled, but they wore their uniforms just the same. Among other

things they bought beans, because beans are easy to transport and they don’t spoil and a man can damn

well live on them. Beans were twelve and a half cents a pound and hard to find. And farmers wished

they hadn’t contracted their beans for a lousy two cents a pound above the going price six months ago.

The nation and the Salinas Valley changed its songs. At first we sang of how we would knock the

hell out of Helgoland and hang the Kaiser and march over there and clean up the mess them damn

foreigners had made. And then suddenly we sang, “In the war’s red curse stands the Red Cross nurse.

She’s the rose of No Man’s Land,” and we sang, “Hello, central, give me Heaven, ’cause my Daddy’s

there,” and we sang, “Just a baby’s prayer at twilight, when lights are low. She climbs upstairs and

says her prayers—Oh, God! please tell my daddy thaddy must take care—” I guess we were like a

tough but inexperienced little boy who gets punched in the nose in the first flurry and it hurts and we

wished it was over.