One Soldier

Birthday: November 29, 1894

 

City of birth: Vassar, Michigan

Vassar High School Graduating Class of 1914

 

Day of Death: Friday, May 30, 1999. He died two days after receiving the French Legion of Honor Medal.

 

City of Death: Phoenix, Arizona

 

Age: 104

 

The following excerpts were selected from Botimer's memoir.

 

THE VERDUN FRONT

Then we went into the front line in the Verdun sector where the bloodiest battle of World War One had been fought for four years.

 

This time in we got the feel, the sight, the sound, the smell and the general routine of battle but not much danger. The trenches were deep, and the dugouts were deeper, but oh so filthy and lousy and rat infested.

 

After four years in this place, undeground tunnels ran everywhere, It was interesting with the whine of big shells shrieking over head and then the bang! They said don't pay attention to the ones you hear but watch out for the one you don't hear.

 

THE FINAL SHOT

Maybe the very last night out was the worst ever. Someone whom neither I nor my regular sleeping buddy knew came along with a sad story about his bad luck of not having enough blankets or a partner with whom to sleep. Finally, we broke down and said he could sleep with us. Three in a shelter half tent designed for two is a bad deal even in good conditions, but in that kind of night it was simply torture. Toward morning I thought my feet were freezing, and I suggested to Bill, my buddy, that we get up and exercise to get warm. We jog trotted around in circles while the tramp slept on with the comfort of all our blankets. That was the worst of all nights and the best of all nights, for in the morning at reveille we were informed that the war would end at eleven o'clock. Out of range of enemy fire, but close enough to hear, we waited nervously for the last shot.

 

HALLOWED GROUND

Finally, it fell dramatically silent. The most monstrous of all wars up until that time, and the most hideous of all battlefields were strangely quiet. And I, of all people, was standing on this hallowed ground where nine hundred thousand French had died, and many were buried in the midst of the debris that caused their death. I was overwhelmed with the meaning of the silence. How did my life get cast into this maelstrom of events which had grown to this degree of fury?

 

Events had shaped my great adventure from day one, and there was no other way of looking at it, but to accept the fact that God The Father Almighty had heard my prayers from a field of battle where more than a million men had prayed in vain.