Museum After Hours - The Doughboy's Life in Battle

Presented at the Kansas Museum of History on November 9, 2018
The Great War caught a generation of American soldiers at a turning point in the nation’s history. At the moment of the Republic’s emergence as a key player on the world stage, these were the first Americans to endure mass machine warfare, and the first to come into close contact with foreign peoples and cultures in large numbers. What was it like, Richard S. Faulkner asks, to be one of these foot soldiers at the dawn of the American century? How did the doughboy experience the rigors of training and military life, interact with different cultures, and endure the shock and chaos of combat? The answer can be found in Pershing’s Crusaders, the most comprehensive, and intimate, account ever given of the day-to-day lives and attitudes of the nearly 4.2 million American soldiers mobilized for service in World War I.
Pershing’s Crusaders offers a clear, close-up picture of the doughboys in all of their vibrant diversity, shared purpose, and unmistakably American character. It encompasses an array of subjects from the food they ate, the clothes they wore, their view of the Allied and German soldiers and civilians they encountered, their sexual and spiritual lives, their reasons for serving, and how they lived and fought, to what they thought about their service along every step of the way. Faulkner’s vast yet finely detailed portrait draws upon a wealth of sources-thousands of soldiers’ letters and diaries, surveys and memoirs, and a host of period documents and reports generated by various staff agencies of the American Expeditionary Forces. Animated by the voices of soldiers and civilians in the midst of unprecedented events, these primary sources afford an immediacy rarely found in historical records. Pershing’s Crusaders is, finally, a work that uniquely and vividly captures the reality of the American soldier in World War I for all time. Faulkner is the author of Pershing’s Crusaders: The American Soldier in World War I

[@bigdave1579]

One of my favorite historians of the Great War!!!

[@prophetic0311]

Faulkner is the GOAT

[@Eriugena8]

thank you so much!

[@alejandragarcia-nz3xi]

Спасибо огромное! 🇷🇺

[@Ratkill]

15:30 This lack of centralized training camps is something still prevalent in former soviet countries today. I know in russia this was the case as recently as 2020, where you have the contracted Lt training their unit from day one. These officers also don't like to live in the barracks, its not a base as we know in the US. So these officers go home to their own houses at night, leaving the conscripts to their own devices. This is why rape is also such an issue in soviet-style militaries. These officers will train their men to the level that they feel is sufficient, and stop there. Complex communications training? Maybe. Joint operations with armor? Maybe. Most often they fire the weapon, hold competitions on how fast you can pop the dust cover off of an AK, throw some grenades, and try not to burn the place down in the process. It all depends on officer initiative.

[@lennissytsma5503]

Good clean fun. Sad and true.

[@alganhar1]

So American soldiers fight for souvenir's eh? Guess my father must be American, given how many such things he 'liberated' or swapped over an army career that extended to 36 years with the British Army. Up to and including a T-54 that he eventually donated to a base in the UK after a memorable argument with my mother that she ended with the immortal words (at least to us), and just where the hell are we supposed to park it? Its still there acting as a static Gate Guard. To this day we still have no idea how he got half the stuff back home! There is literally a 120mm recoilless rifle in the attic! No ammunition obviously, but how he got the thing up there still mystifies me to this day!

[@emmettochrach-konradi2785]

Man that's a funny Vietnam joke