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Text originally published in 1928 under the same title.
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Publishers Note
Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.
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ONE MANS WAR
By Corporal J. E. Rendinell
and
George Pattulo
FOREWORD
One Mans War The Diary of a Leatherneck By Corporal J. E. Rendinell and George Pattullo
Joe (Corporal Rendinell) at the outbreak of the War was working in the steel mills as an electrician. He joined up with the 6th Marines, and fought with his regiment through the battle of Belleau Woods. He was wounded and gassed three times, rejoined his regiment and was discharged at the end of the war with three citations for bravery.
Here is the war seen through the eyes of the average young American soldier, disciplined and toughened by it, both physically and spiritually. When it came to rough stuff he could hold his own with anybody. He had none of the edifying traits of the bedtime story hero. With him war was a desperate knock down and drag out business, the mighty crushing drama of stem reality.
His diary, ungrammatical, illiterate, with spelling often incorrect, has in its simplicity a majesty and dramatic range that is remarkable. Says George Pattullo, The Corporal has put a whole war into fewer words than a correspondent employs to tell how clever he was in getting up to the front.
He describes with vivid simplicity the battle of Belleau Woods, in which he was a member of an advance scouting party. He dismisses mention of his being wounded in half a dozen words, but words which are loaded impressively with feeling and strength.
His diary is the personal touch applied to history, and withal it has a robust, healthy, frank humour.
INTRODUCTION
Joe kept a sort of diary while he was with the 6th Marines and he asked me to make a book of it and some of his letters home. His idea was a book of regulation length; but I found the Corporal had put a whole war into fewer words than a correspondent employs to tell how clever he was in getting up to the front; so I decline to commit sacrilege by padding his narrative.
A lesser man than Joe would have surrendered to the urge to write pretty. Often a belated sense of duty drives men of action to pause in the middle of a robust tale and start moralizing and maundering, and they usually bog down to the ears. Joe never once did that. His diary sweeps along like Julius Caesar.
Not that men like Joe don't have the thoughts and emotions, the fears and exaltations, which scholarly writers are so fond of analyzing to a hair's breadth; but they are generally inarticulate, and leave self-interpretation to action. It is men of this tough fibre who do the work of the world, who reclaim waste lands and build empires. It is this breed which built America.
Sentimentalists may find this diary rough fare. Their notion of war and fighting men is that of two elderly ladies from Massachusetts who backed a returned war veteran correspondent up against a wall on Fifth Avenue in 1918 and commanded him to tell them everything.
And all the dreadful sights you saw, too, they urged. Isnt it awful what those Germans do? Weve just been reading about the way they treated some of our boys they took prisoner. Its hard to believe human beings could
Whatve they been up to now?
Why, they kicked some of our boys who were prisoners!
Oh, well, remarked the correspondent tolerantly, things like that are apt to happen in war, you know. Everybodys doing it. Its dog eat dog.
What? they cried in horror. Our boys act that way? Oh, well never believe it. Theyre too noble!
That is the way the nationals of every country regard their own soldiers when patriotic fervor reaches boiling-point. And a warm-hearted people will carry the illusion to the n th degree of absurdity, exalting their youth to a plane impossible for mortal men. They expect them to fight like terriers, but display at all other times the sweetness and virtues of Little Rollo.
Now, my acquaintance is rather extensive, but I have met few noble youths in my life and they never accomplished much. The men who do the world's work are all of sterner stuff. And in warwell, war is a foul, knockdown-and-drag-out business, however righteous the purpose for which it is being waged. It requires men of rough, tough fibre. Noble young men seldom figure prominently. Of course, the public usually puts a hero on a pedestal, but it is the vivid narrative of his achievements which exalts him, and actually his most valuable asset for the job was the primitive fighting instinct that prompts a bulldog to shut his eyes and hang on to the finish. And whether in war or everyday life, this quality is the greatest and highest. Whatsoever the prattlers say, there is no virtue to rank with courage.
The average American soldier was simply the average young American in a uniform, disciplined and toughened both physically and spiritually. And who would call our average youth noble, or expect of him the edifying traits of a bedtime story hero? He is hard and practical, and when it comes to rough stuff, he can hold his own with anybody. But this I want to emphasize as regards our fighting menthey grow positively maudlin over Home and Mother, and possess a capacity for loyalties which sends them willingly into the face of death for friends or country.
Of course, loyalties are provincial nowadays and the butt of our more highly sensitized thinkers who yearn over all mankind. Yet loyalties still hold the world together, and men capable of them make the races progress.
In his diary and letters, Rendinell has covered about every aspect of life with the A.E.F. I can think of only one that he has practically neglected. It is likely to occur to a lot of leathernecks and doughboys, too, this omission, which is my only reason for mentioning it. They will scan the Corporals tale and hoot Everything in but Topic A, huh? I guess maybe that bird was too nice to take any notice, maybe. Oo, l l!
Whether this reticence on the Corporals part proceeds from caution, or whether his sense of values prompted him to ignore the subject, I am unable to say; but it does seem queer. For no matter how a conversation started out in any group of fighting men off dutyno matter what problems of politics and finance and religion they crashed throughno matter what subtleties that had troubled scholars for ages those boys brushed aside with one sentence the talk always veered around to Topic A. Yet Joe makes hardly any reference to it. It is very curious.
