It’s so useless, hopeless and destructive.

On this date 100 years ago Grant sat down to write a letter home after his first taste of war. He was in a state of shock from what he'd experienced.


Friday – Aug. 17, 1917

Dear Family:-

Have been sitting at this table for the last 15 minutes trying to collect my thoughts sufficiently to assemble them into some sort of an epistle which I feel is due you. The thought which continually comes to mind and refuses to evacuate is the significance and true meaning of the war, or rather the phrase “modern warfare” and the hopelessness and uselessness of this present war in which we 40 men are trying to play our infinitesimal part. Having just come off a 48 hour shift up near the front I am chock full of it and I don’t know that my brain has been sufficiently cleared by the three hours sleep I have just received to relate it in anywhere near accurate sequence to you. However, I shall attempt to do so in brief. I shall fulfill your request in telling you a bit more about our work over here. Please don’t blame me if the censors see fit to remove part of it.

The French military departments are about as follows: Army, Army Corps, Brigade, Division, Regiment and Companies. A Regiment over here is made up of anywhere from 1000 to 3000 men. A Division comprises anywhere from 2 to 7 Regiments depending upon the sector served by said Division. Each Division has anywhere from 1 to 3 or 4 Ambulance sections serving it. All of these sections were formerly French sections but have been gradually replaced by either the American Red Cross or American Field Service. The French sections have not been entirely replaced by any means but to a considerable extent.

With this as a foundation then let me tell you more of Section 61’s situation. We are serving with Division [CENSORED]which is at present in a rather hot sector and therefore considerably swelled in numbers and therefore we are serving with Sect. 1 of the American Field Service who have been operating in this district for some time.

We are responsible for about 10 posts called “Postes de Secours” to which the wounded are brought by French “brancardiers”. The roads to these various posts centralize at a cave called Citerne Marceau. All of these roads are partly exposed to the Boche sausage balloons in the day time so our work as well as that of the supply trains and artillery caissons is done under cover of night in pitch blackness over roads made very rough by heavy traffic and occasional shelling by enemy guns. Four cars are kept at the Citerne continually and the remainder are kept back here at our base ready for instant call when the other four are busy. We are supposed to work on 24 hour shifts but we have been rather unfortunate with cars of late and have been called upon to use every available car for the last two nights. My car happens to be in perfect running condition which fact keeps me on the job a good share of the time. The work has been very hard for the last two nights.

The wounded are classified under two heads – couchés and assis. A couché is a badly wounded man who has to be carried on a stretcher. An assis is a sitting case. Our cars carry either 10 assis or 5 couchés or a combination of the two. Every incoming load stops at the Citerne for inspection and any work which requires immediate attention is done there by a very good French medical corps. From there the wounded are carried by us to this hospital where the worst cases are taken. The rest are taken by a French section of Fiats to hospitals in the vicinity so that the place may be kept as clear as possible. The other night and night before last the work here was too heavy for the French Fiat sections and I was called out at 3 P.M. that day to help evacuate. We were busy until 1 P.M. yesterday. We carried during that time 35 cases in six trips. You can perhaps judge from this something of the difficulty of night work on heavy roads with no light. Some of the cases were very bad gas cases.

I went to bed upon my return and was aroused at 4 P.M. by the good news that Mr. Norton was in camp and had brought some mail with him. The mail proved to be one registered package for some one else. At 5 P.M. yesterday the chief asked me if I would take himself and Mr. Norton up to one of our posts. Of course I did. The road was being shelled by the Boche and we had to take refuge in an abri (which is an underground cave found everywhere along the roads) where we remained from about 10 P.M. to 4 this morning. After the shelling ceased the road became jammed with wagons and trucks and being very slippery after a heavy rain we found it necessary to wait until almost daylight before the road became sufficiently cleared to run on. We found our car untouched and made a rapid trip home. This place never looked so good before. During our 6 hours in that hole in the ground Mr. Norton told us many funny experiences and kept us in good humor all the time. He’s a great man and I’m sure every fellow here is mighty proud to be working under such a man. Such experiences as these ought to make men out of us all. While one can’t avoid a decided hate for the enemy he learns patience, calmness, ability to think rapidly in emergencies and he incidentally becomes very fleet of foot. In addition to this he becomes a decided pacifist and loathes the person or persons who instigate such murderous slaughter. It’s so useless, hopeless and destructive. There is no gain there from which cannot be obtained without the sacrifice of human lives and the sacrifice of every thing the human mind has spent all these years in developing. The other night I had a town pointed out to me and was told that we were then passing through the main street. Gun flashes revealed the fact that not a single stone of that town was still whole. It was an absolutely flat mass of broken stone without a single building or tree left standing. It’s criminal: and the responsible party deserves to be punished accordingly. I have had my fill and will be glad to return to America but it will be to a New America. I’m sure Americans have no idea what hell is and will not until our boys get busy and their stories told back home.

But take heart, dearest family, and tell mother not to worry. By the time you receive this letter we will be off this sector and in repos somewhere far from this hell hole and December will find me on my way home to you.

Now I must go and get my blankets in before the dew falls.

Use your own judgment Dad in showing this letter to mother.

Much love,

Grant.

Convois Automobiles,

Section Américaine, S.S.U. 61,

Bureau Central Militaire,

Paris, France.