This has haunted me for years. I was born in July of 1899 in a small farming village in the Central Massif of France, the youngest of five brothers sandwiched between four beautiful sisters. Even now the thought of my brothers and sisters brings tears to my eyes and sorrow to my heart.
Looking back, my childhood was ideal. My mother was a wonderful, happy lady and my father was dedicated to his farm, his family and his goats. Our chores as children were to make cheese and keep things cleaned up. My mother was like a drill sergeant and my father was a master who presided quietly over everything. For a long time I hated my two oldest brothers, but I adored my brother who was only two years older than me – he was more than 2 meters tall, and he was an idiot. Even though he was an idiot, he was kind to me, and he was my protector. My other three brothers were short, and I am a few centimeters shy of 2 meters myself. My brother Rainee, the idiot, loved me dearly and watched over me like a shepherd, making sure that no harm to me was allowed. To this day I loved the thought of my life and my family, and I still frequently cry myself to sleep in memory of them and not having seen them since I was fifteen years old.
In 1915, I was forced by our local Prefecture to join the army. My two older brothers, who I had simultaneously hated and feared, but had grown to love, had both been killed earlier in the year at a place way north of us called the Marne River. My mother was sad and hated the government. My father was proud. They had a ceremony in our village for my brothers where they pinned metals on my father. It brought tears to his eyes and a feeling of awe and respect among the people in our village. My third oldest brother was already in the army, and of course, Rainee the idiot, who had turned into a horse of man and a very able farmer, could not go. I remember he wanted to avenge my brother’s deaths.
I was so scared. I hated everything about the army. I had inherited my Father’s gentle spirit. There was none of the “drill sergeant” in me, although; my mother, the drill sergeant, turned into a river of tears when they came to get me. I remember she lost her composure, said things that were not characteristic of her, and embarrassed the men who came to escort me to my new life.
In only two months I ended up in some towns I had never heard of in Northwestern France on a river called the Somme. I dug trenches. My companions were killed. I ended up with shakes from the sound and tremors of the mortar and artillery fire. The thundering of the earth I later learned had made me “shell-shocked”. There were no birds. I remember all my life until then hearing birds all day and all night. I heard no birds for two years in the army. I missed the birds, which is why I love living in my little mobile home on a quiet pond in Florida. There are birds everywhere here. Even though I am almost one hundred years old, the birds bring a piece of mind to me and they restore my spirit.
I was moved around a lot in the service. Many metals for valor were bestowed upon me, but erroneously, for I just reacted. I wasn’t brave—I fear I was a coward. I was scared, and I am still scared. I still hear the mortar fire and the screams of my companions, and I still hear no birds. The rain is terrible and the trenches collapse in front of us burying many men. I see a lot of what other people do not see because I am so tall. Maybe that is why I am alive. Although I am supposed to be a hero, when I sense a collapsing trench, I get out in a hurry and seek cover in a shell hole, which inevitably becomes the beginning of a new trench. I used to count the number of trenches I had dug but gave up when war ceased to become a game. I loved my companions so much that the thought of their demise and torture brings pain to my chest and makes it hard for me to swallow, even now.
In early 1917 I was in such a terrible state that I shook all the time. I had been wounded five times. My pack had many metals inside. I threw them all out. I had been shaking, almost uncontrollably, for six months from a battle my lieutenant called Cote 304 (Hill 304) north of Verdun. Only thirteen of my regiment is known to have survived, and I have since come to learn that they thought I was killed. I didn’t remember my name and was shipped west again where I met up with an army from Canada. In 1917 many of my companions just left and went home. They no longer cared whether they were shot for deserting. The Germans were doing the same thing. On century duty, two years before, you could see the desire in the German boy’s eyes to kill us. We shared that desire. In 1917 the German’s eyes were as dead as ours were. I have since found out that they deserted, too, and just went home, in 1917.
In the havoc of battle, I walked away. Again, I did not remember my name. A Canadian officer, who spoke French in a more educated way than I did, took me aside and made me take off my clothes. He put me in the uniform of a dead Canadian soldier named John LaFont. He bound one of my arms underneath the uniform and wrapped it in bloody gauze, wrote something on a bunch of papers, and saw to it that I was put on a train to the coast. He gave me a letter to carry and made me memorize an address, my new name, and several other facts that would help in my journey.
I got to Montreal in May of 1917 among great excitement as the Americans had come into the war the previous month. I could not share the excitement, and felt only sorrow for those men who would never again see their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. It was obvious to me that I was now a refugee, and in the eyes of my country, a criminal. I could never go back. I could only start a new life, in a foreign country, at the age of eighteen, in an environment about which I knew nothing.
It was fortunate that everybody spoke French for I knew no English and was not able to learn English for a long time. I walked for more than one hundred kilometers to my “new home” where I was received with love and tears, simultaneously. I was now their son, and I fell in love with their daughter, who reminded me of Rainee the way she took care of me. She fondled my hair at night when I cried and when I shook. She would lay her gentle hand upon my chest when she knew that my heart was quivering. In addition to comfort and a new life, she gave me five children, three of which survive today. While I am alone, I am not. She taught me to read and write in French and English. After two years I began to remember everything about who I was and where I was from. I yearned to see my family again.
I do not have much time left. My story should perhaps have been told long ago, but I am still full of fear—perhaps it’s still cowardice.
Two years ago my oldest grandchild took me to my village in France, and I wish I had never allowed myself to be talked into the journey. There on the small town square, under “Mort Pour France, 1914-1918”, was my name and all of my brothers except Rainee. My youngest brother and I both had a Fleur-De-Les next to our name—we were post humus recipients of France’s highest medal for valor. They think I am dead. On the other side of a memorial, under 1940-1945, were two other names of my brothers children who were killed in World War II. I found my parents and Rainee’s gravestones but nothing of my sisters. My mother died in 1923, and in my heart, I know that healthy woman died of a broken heart for love of all of us. My father lived to be a very old man, and I wonder if he was happy or sad, or like me, both. Rainee died right after my father died. He followed my father around like a puppy, and I wonder if my father’s death was too much for him, as I am sure our deaths were too much for my mother.
My grandchildren and my great-grandchildren think I am a hero. They call me the bravest man they have ever known. Yet, even after my happy moments, I am sad and miserable, and I hurt inside beyond description. I am still haunted. How many people mourned my death when I actually just ran away? Was I just “missing in action” or am I a coward?.
George W. Rauch
July, 1998
Note: The subject lives in a mobile home park owned by a friend of the author. He wants to come forward, and he has been encouraged to do so, but he is of such an age, and lives in such great fear of being condemned, that he wishes to remain anonymous.
