We have given up hope of ever getting out of here.

As April gave way to May, 1919, Grant Willard and his comrades were still stuck in tiny Le Douet on the outskirts of Nantes with little idea of when they would sail home. Boredom and anxiety mixed with military regimen.

Adding to the boredom was the fact that they were confined to camp for the days surrounding May Day, or ​​International Workers' Day. It was probably his first exposure to the holiday as the year before he was very busy at the front. Even though International Workers' Day was founded to commemorate the laborers killed in the Haymarket Affair in Chicago in 1886, the holiday never caught on in the U.S. as it did around the world. Various labor organizations and the government promoted Labor Day in early September instead.

In this entry Grant also mentions the older sister of his good friend and fellow ambulance driver, Allen "Happy" Ahlers. "Hap" and Grant served together for the whole war. Following the Armistice, Harriet H. Alhers Houdlette (1891-1985) came to France as a volunteer with the American Red Cross. 

Saturday, May 3, 1919:

Still here in this little hole of Le Douet within striking distance of Nantes and yet too far off when one is “broke” as most of us are now. We have given up hope of ever getting out of here. A week ago today Lieut. Smith was told by the embarkation officer that we would leave yesterday. But nothing has come of any of these rumors and we have given up hope.

Lieut. Smith returned from Chaumont yesterday where he went in quest of these 17 Croix de Guerre that were promised us. He has made no formal statement yet, but Jack said last night that he was unsuccessful.

And so we hang on from day to day flitting from rumor to rumor, doing our daily drill and fatigue, not without complaint to be sure, but desperately and halfheartedly. Oh that I had only been demobilized over here when I had the chance.

For the past three days we have been held close to our barracks being prohibited from leaving the town because of French labor demonstrations. It seems that these three days are set aside for the French labor parties to celebrate in whatever way they see fit. They see fit in staying intoxicated most of the time and I guess the authorities are afraid of trouble if the Americans try to mix in.

It’s reported that we get paid Monday or Tuesday.

Allen Alhers (left) with Grant Willard in 1917.

Harriet Ahlers is in Paris, having just arrived in Red Cross work. Hap received a letter from her from Brest and sent a reply by Lieut. Smith which he delivered in person in Paris. She can’t come down here and Hap can’t go to Paris. Tough.