In Their Words

1st Lt. Daniel J. Birmingham

“I am hitching on to one of the Regular Army outfits and the 1st to land on this side. These men have all been under fire and the first few days I felt pretty small amongst them. Have been given my chance at the front here and support so consider myself now somewhat chesty. It matters not what one knows concerning this game. The most essential thing of all is to have the guts and believe me at times one’s legs shake like a reed in the wind. It’s a strange sensation when the shrapnel starts to drop all around you. Alarms of gas screaming all over the area, mud waist high and not a darn dugout in sight, trenches not 4 feet deep and a gap wide between your parapet and Fritz’s. It sure is not a grand and glorious feeling. There’s nothing you can conceive that can picture to your mind the condition of no man’s land. It certainly was named correctly. Such a dam shame must be a part of hell in some sections. Dead Germans. Equipment, legs, wine stink, mud, water holes and more holes, and oh my the barbed wire.”

Letter of March 19th, 1918 from
1st Lt. Daniel J. Birmingham, 28th Inf., Co. M

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