John Perry - Sergeant York

CHRISTIAN ENCOUNTERS

SERGEANT
YORK

CHRISTIAN ENCOUNTERS

SERGEANT
YORK

JOHN PERRY

2010 by John Perry

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Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible (public domain).

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Perry, John, 1952
Sergeant York / John Perry.
p. cm. (Christian encounters)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-59555-025-5
1. York, Alvin Cullum, 18871964. 2. SoldiersUnited StatesBiography.
3. World War, 19141918CampaignsFrance. 4. United States. Army Biography. I. Title.
D570.9.Y7P47 2010
940.4'36dc22
[B] 2010028462

Printed in the United States of America

10 11 12 13 HCI 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

W riting about history, I generally spend a lot of time shuffling through old letters and digging (often literally) through stacks and boxes of musty documents. The story of Sergeant Alvin York is different in that, in addition to all the usual research, I have had the pleasure of speaking with friends, neighbors, and family members who knew the man. Archival documents, wonderful as they are, cant explain themselves or answer a question. Having this living link with my subject provides a rare level of comfort in stating facts and drawing conclusions.

Not that the story of Alvin York is cut-and-dried. Like anyone with strongly felt opinions, York had his enemies. And he was unflinchingly partisan when it came to politics: in line with most Southern voters of the time, he was a Yellow Dog Democrat who considered Hoover a buffoon and FDR the nations savior. He was more a doer than a thinker, a man of action whose energy and resolve led him to jump into situations he hadnt fully thought through, sometimes to troublesome effect.

York never went looking for fame or wealth. They came to him, and he handled them as best he could. The fact that he single-handedly captured 132 Germans and killed maybe two dozen would be unbelievable if not for the detailed official eyewitness accounts. York thought it was a miracle, and so do I. For decades he resisted cashing in on his celebrity, declaring time and again that Uncle Sams uniform aint for sale. The threat of annihilation on the eve of World War II changed his mind. His desire to see America standing strong against maniacal threats from Germany and Japan finally outweighed his natural humility and self-imposed standard of propriety.

As the result of the Hollywood blockbuster that carried his name, Sergeant York became a hero all over again and a wealthy man, and gained an informal but significant position of influence in international affairs. Then, in an ironic twist worthy of Greek tragedy, the fame York had avoided for so long and handled with such selfless grace led to hardship and humiliation. Years that should have been filled with honors and accolades were spent struggling merely to survive.

Yet in good times and bad, York was astonishingly consistent, upbeat, and gracious. He never crowed of his success and never complained of his ill treatment at the hands of people who should have known better. His secretwhich was no secret at all, because he talked of it for nearly fifty yearswas his rock-solid faith in God and in Christ. Yorks religion was his lodestar, the one infallible and unchanging component in a life filled to overflowing with changes and contrasts: a man with a third-grade education who built a school; a backwoods Tennessee mountaineer who inspired a Hollywood hit; a poor man who died poor but was rich in between; a life that began with plow horses and kerosene lamps but extended into a world of nuclear power and space exploration.

For Alvin York, wherever he was and whatever his circumstances, Jesus was there to comfort, guide, and point the way. From the day his heart was transformed by Christ through a mothers love, York was a Christian soldier of the truest sort. The phrase may sound hokey to twenty-first-century ears, but the honor, diligence, patriotism, and faith they describe remain timeless.

Soli Deo Gloria
John Perry
Nashville
Memorial Day, 2010

1
NEW YEARS PROMISE

A lvin York was drunk again. Hed liked the sensation of corn whiskey down his throat ever since he sneaked his first sip as a boy, but he really took to it after his daddy died. Life was hard during the best of times in the Wolf River Valley of Tennessee, and Alvins life was a struggle even by valley standards. He and his people didnt complain because they had no idea how poor they truly were. Life had always been that way; they were seldom disappointed, because they expected so little. Alvins family owned seventy-five acres in this beautiful, isolated pocket of farm country seven miles from the Kentucky line. It was just enough to scratch out a living for him, his mother, and eight younger brothers and sisters. Two older brothers were married and on their own, leaving Alvin head of the household.

Days he worked his own land and hired out to help neighboring farmers. Nights he spent at his fathers smithy, where he could earn another fifty cents after it was too dark to plow. Some nights after that, hed go out for a nip.

Folks called him Big Un, and everything he did, he did in a big way. He was big himself, a burly, barrel-chested ox of a man, muscles grown taut and strong from a lifetime of steadying a plow and wielding a hammer. His head was topped with a thick, unruly thatch of red hair. In a time and place where every man was a good shot, his marksmanship was legendary. No one could afford to waste ammunition putting meat on the table, but Alvins skill was a cut above. He could drop five birds with five rifle shots. He could put two bullets in the same target hole at twenty paces.

When Big Un got into a fight, he fought big. Sometimes with his fists, sometimes with a knifebut always in it to win. When he drank, he drank big. Alcohol made him even more of a fighter, so after a night of moonshine whiskey, Alvin was likely to fight anybody on any terms. Like the other men thereabouts, Alvin did his drinking at one of the blind tigers near the settlements of Static and Bald Rock. A blind tiger was a ramshackle bar straddling the state line, with a white stripe painted down the middle of the floor. Kentucky was on one side of the room, and Tennessee on the other. Kentucky residents went into Tennessee to drink, and vice versa. When the local sheriff from either side arrived, customers hopped back into their own states, out of jurisdiction of whoever came through the door. Plenty of other popular vices were available there, too, all in one convenient location. Blind tigers were where Alvin and his neighbors did a lot of card playing, scrapping, and cursing.