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THESE COLORS DON’T RUN

Sherlock
November11/ 2019

Veterans Day is a time of memory and reflection for those of us who had the benefit of being born to good parents.

I’m an Army veteran, but I was fortunate never to have to prove how tough I was under enemy fire.

Many of our ancestors showed up when it was time.

99’s father survived a Nazi shell that knocked out his tank during the Battle of the Bulge.

My Dad was a US Navy veteran of World War Two. He served against the Japs.

Uncle Don, Grandpa Charlie, Dad, Uncle Chuck. Grandpa Charlie had served in WWI, and in combat against the Chicago Outfit as a cop. Dad would enlist later in WWII. Uncle Don, barely a teen in 1942, would report for duty during the Korean War.

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My Dad’s older brother Uncle Chuck served in the Army in World War Two. So did my Aunt Billie, who was a nurse during the war. She married Uncle Chuck.

My Dad’s younger brother Uncle Don served in Korea as an Army medic. The Red Chinese and North Korean bastards used his medic’s cross for target practice; they wounded him five times. He had the Purple Heart with a gold oak leaf cluster to prove it.

Uncle Rusty served in World War Two as a bomber crew member. He won a Distinguished Flying Cross for a bombing run against the Japs during which the aircraft’s bomb dropping mechanism failed. Uncle Rusty basically did a pull-up and kicked bombs free to drop them on enemy targets. He damn near fell out of the plane, but he was so fired up he didn’t consider it till after he pulled himself to safety.

My Aunt Olive was an Army nurse during the Korean War.

Virtually all the men in Dad’s circle of friends at our parish and elsewhere were veterans of World War Two or Korea.

Both of my grandfathers were veterans of World War One. Grandpa Charlie was a sailor, but he didn’t leave the US. Grandpa Leo, an infantryman, got gassed by the Krauts in France. It would eventually cost him his eyesight. Granny Theresa’s brother Emil was also gassed and died young.

Grandpa Charlie came to America from Ireland when he was five years old. Grandpa Leo’s parents came to America from Ireland not long before he was born.

On my mother’s mother’s side, her ancestors came from the Czech lands about the time of the Civil War.

Granny Ruth’s uncle was a Navy veteran of the Spanish American War.

One of Granny Ruth’s Czech ancestors and a collateral ancestor served in the Civil War. One had a hard assignment – the Union’s Army of the Potomac. The other served under General Sherman.

99’s Slovak relatives … a good-looking and sad-looking couple. Wars took so many young people’s lives and ruined the lives of so many they left behind.

 

Many of 99’s people served in the army of Austria-Hungary. We have pictures of one who served for Franz Josef in the late 1800s, and of one who served for him during World War One. 99’s people on her mother’s side came to America from Slovakia in the early 1900s.

Some of my family served in Ireland’s war of independence against England after World War One. Dad met them when he was a kid, and said it was one of the few times in his life he was awed and impressed.

That’s our families’ trees. Many others have similar foliage.

 

Now for a focus on a general most of you have never heard of, but was a key reason we won World War One, which ended on this day 101 years ago.

One of the most cherished gifts a military man can get are letters from home. And about the only time in his in life a man writes letters in quantity is when he is away from his loved ones.

Joseph Dickman was one of these military men who served our country. And he served it from a unique perspective – he commanded an infantry division, then later a corps in France. His letters to home give a view of that war the historians will never have.

Joseph Dickman, 1857-1927. Great character with a sense of humor.

Leader of Men.

 

General Dickman’s military career reads like several chapters from an American history book. Dickman, an Ohioan, graduated from West Point in 1881, served as a cavalry officer in the campaign against the Apache chief Geronimo, tracked down cattle thieves in Texas in the late 1880s, fought against Mexican bandits and captured their leaders in the early 1890s, took part in suppression of the rioting related to the Pullman strike in the Chicago area in 1894, and served with the cavalry in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in 1898. (1)

Dickman served as an infantry officer against Alguinado’s guerrillas and against crazed Moslem Moros in the Philippines in 1899 and 1900. He had the side job of assisting in the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China in 1900. After some time in the States, he came back on assignment to the Philippines later in the decade.

In the years before World War One, Dickman checked out the cavalries of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy, France, and Britain. Then he had an extended “quiet” assignment in Vermont, which enabled him to earn a law degree from Vermont University.

When World War One came, Dickman was still a cavalry officer. He received the assignment to organize and train the U.S. 3rd Division, an infantry outfit.

The French and British looked down on the Americans. General Foch and General Haig, the French and British commanders, viewed the Americans as raw meat to be plugged into their units as replacements and to be subjects to French and British discipline and regulations.

General John “Black Jack” Pershing – who got his nickname for commanding black soldiers in the segregated Army of the day — said nothing doing. If the Americans weren’t going to fight as American units under American colors, he said, then they wouldn’t fight at all. The French and British leaders lyingly argued that they didn’t have the ships to bring Americans over in units. Pershing replied America had a great fleet also. And besides, he added, if the British were willing to transport American troops to Europe to serve as replacement bodies in British and French units, they damn sure had the vessel capacity to assist in the transport of American men and supplies if Americans were serving under American leaders!

US 101st Division Ammo Train, French Spectators.

Credit US Army Signal Corps.

 

In fact, Pershing snarled at Haig, if the situation was so desperate for the British and the French, then why were more than a million British and British colonial troops grabbing colonies for Britain or beating down the natives in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa instead of fighting in France? And why were hundreds of thousands of British soldiers still in nearby Britain instead of in the trenches?

Woodrow Wilson would probably have overruled Pershing, but thankfully his Secretary of War Newton Baker trusted Pershing’s judgment. The Allied generals stopped trying to badger Pershing for awhile. They would try to bully him and go behind his back to America’s civilian leaders again, but they eventually assigned American divisions to front line positions and assigned the American Expeditionary Force a sector to control in the Allied lines. (2)

General Dickman would command an infantry division that was very active in the war against the Germans. Dickman and the soldiers of the U.S. 3rd Infantry Division – and the marines assigned to it – stopped the German assault at Chateau-Thierry in June 1918, and counterattacked them and threw them back. This was the action in which a Marine Corps officer, when advised by a French officer to retreat, yelled, “Retreat, hell! We just got here!” (3)

Dickman commanded the U.S. 3rd when these men stopped the last major German offensive thrust – their attack that resulted in the final Battle of the Marne River in July 1918. Even though the French on the right side of his division retreated, exposing his division’s right flank, Dickman didn’t panic. He told the French his men were staying put. He also reportedly said Americans would never understand why their flag had to be carried in retreat. General Dickman had his men adjust their trench lines a little on the right flank to face the Germans, and they held off the Germans. They then counterattacked and threw the Germans back. His resoluteness and his men’s toughness earned that division the nickname “Rock of the Marne.” (4)

Dickman received a promotion, and he would command the U.S. Army’s 4th Corps – a group made up of several divisions – in the successful American assault on the Germans’ St. Mihiel salient near Verdun. Later, he commanded the U.S. Army’s 1st Corps in the Meuse Argonne offensive.

After the Armistice, Dickman was one of the generals in charge of the occupation of the Rhineland in Germany.

Dickman, according to contemporary reports, was one of the few high-ranking American officers who didn’t sugar-coat American generalship after the war. He commented on the battle of Belleau Wood – which marines and soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Division took at the cost of more than 8000 men killed, as “magnificent fighting,” but not “modern war.” This was his way of saying the men did their duty well but the senior officers who ordered the soldiers and marines to launch wave assaults against the well-prepared Germans were incompetents who threw away many men’s lives needlessly. (5)

Here are some of the things Dickman wrote to his wife, his brother, his sister, and a friend of his who was a priest (Dickman was a Catholic) about the horrible war and the twisted peace that followed.

“The events of the last two weeks of July were distinctly American affairs. It is not generally known how few good divisions the French have left; many of them are weak in numbers and low in morale. The 42nd American Division stopped the drive south of Rheims and the 26th American Division held the enemy northwest of Chateau-Thierry; and the 1st and 2nd American Divisions were the head and front of Foch’s counter-attack. It is not too much to say that, but for the resolute stand of the 3d Division, the enemy would now well be on his way to Paris; and but for the presence of American troops, the war would be over by this time, resulting in defeat of the Allied forces. These things don’t come out in the papers and not much is said about it, but everybody here realizes the situation. The outcome of this war depends upon the punch that the American troops are putting into this campaign.” (letter to his brother, 8/5/1918)

US 33rd Divison soliders drink captured beer from captured steins after pushing back Germans. Credit US Army Signal Corps.

 

Dickman wrote the following about the Meuse-Argonne offensive:

“The present situation of the German army may be compared to that of a large crowd in a hall, trying to get out at the back door. The British, French, and Belgian armies are pushing against the crowd, while the Americans are trying to close the door and advance to the north and west of Metz. Naturally the hardest fighting is at the door which must be kept open at all cost (from the German point of view – author’s note) to prevent capture of the whole crowd. We find the troops in front of us are constantly reinforced by those withdrawn from the north and west. Those who follow the retiring German armies in Flanders and the north of France are making good progress whereas we are up against a very still proposition and do well to keep the enemy occupied. The greatly reduced German divisions still fight very well as our casualty lists will show when they are published.” (letter to his brother, 10/18/1918)

Discussing one of the ugly truths of gas warfare in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, Dickman wrote: “We put 55,000 mustard gas shells into the Bois de Bourgogne north of Grand Pré on Oct. 28-31, and the woods still is impassable. Our salvage corps should eventually get a lot of artillery and machine guns out of that forest.” (letter to his brother, 11/12/1918)

Dickman wasn’t shy about discussing the shortcomings of his “allies.” Here are some of his thoughts on this issue:

“Another matter about which there is very little known in the United States is the question of pillage. You can put it down as certain that all the troops in Europe are on the same footing, Russians, Germans, Italians, and French. They all resort to excesses when they get a chance, and they take advantage of it and indulge in looting of all kinds to the limit. The greatest surprise to us was the looting indulged in in their own territory, so much so that the French people are more afraid of their own troops than they are of the Germans. I have visited many towns, abandoned by the French population and occupied by French Colonials, Territorials, and French Artillery; the destruction of property was indescribable. With the Germans, there was some chance that they would take only what they needed in the way of animals and food supplies; but the French engaged in the destruction of furniture, dishes, pictures, clothing, and in addition, defiled the premises in the worst way possible. When we come to occupy such villages, our principal work is to clean them up and make them habitable.” (letter to his brother, 8/5/1918)

“You can set it down that the American soldier is the best soldier in Europe, and that when it comes to the essential elements of discipline, such as respect for property and regard for women and children, sanitation and hygiene, he discounts any European troops that I have seen. The French people are very glad to have the American soldiers occupy their premises, for they then feel safe and know that their property, what is left of it, will be cared for.” (letter to his brother, 8/5/1918)

There were at least 100,000 black Americans in the ranks in France toward the end of the war. Dickman had some impolite comments on the mingling of American blacks with the women of France:

“The French women have no objection to (black American soldiers) – in fact, rather like them. So France is a haven for the young American negro – light work and a French mistress for each one. Already requests come in to get married before the interesting situation gets too serious. It must be a shock to Americans from the southern states to find negroes actually preferred by white women as mates, and may have great bearing on their feeling for this country.” (letter to his wife, 8/22/1918)

Presumably Dickman meant how white Southerners viewed France … his focus was on winning the war without racial tensions in the ranks.

Black American soldier hurls grenade at Germans. Our black soldiers greatly bucked up the courage of the French units they served with. Sadly, many of them served under French command on military orders because of the racism of too many in the U.S. Army and in government, especially Woodrow Wilson. Credit US Army Signal Corps.

 

Some regiments of black American soldiers in America’s segregated army fought under French command alongside black troops from French colonies in Africa. This was one of Pershing’s few concessions to French and British generals who demanded control of American units. Pershing probably postponed racial strife in his own ranks by this expedient but underhanded move. Of course, the experience of many black soldiers, sailors, and marines in the war led them and other blacks to question why they couldn’t have democracy and safety in America when they were supposed to fight and die so Europeans could have democracy and safety.

Dickman foresaw problems ahead because of the attitudes of the French and British, who were on the winning side because of the courage and skill of the Americans. He wrote:

“The French 4th Cavalry going through Trier beat some of the people with whips. Our people had a tough time to preserve order. I fear there will be a fight between French and American soldiers some day. It will probably be as it was in Pekin where a bunch of French jumped on one lone unarmed American who was half drunk and stabbed him with bayonets. The very best thing that can happen is for us to come home as soon as possible.” (letter to his wife, from Coblenz, Germany 12/24/1918)

“After being in France for a year our soldiers are charmed with Germany and its people. (The Americans were occupying the Rhineland, not Prussia, after the armistice.) It looks like home to them. There are orders against fraternization, but the children fairly flock around our soldiers who feed them on bread, chocolate, cakes, candy, etc. It is surprising to find how many officers and soldiers speak German.” (letter to his wife, from Coblenz, Germany 12/24/1918)

Dickman himself was fluent in French, German, and Spanish.

While a leader of the occupation forces, Dickman had to do some very distasteful work – meet and greet visiting VIPs. One of these was the Prince of Wales, who would become Edward VIII, the man who threw away his crown to marry American socialite Wallis Simpson. When the prince visited in January 1919, Dickman gave him little fanfare, but did host a dance on the occasion. Many American women and British women and French women in the area who were nurses and civilian volunteers eagerly attended. In fact, the killjoy American surgeon general who had forbade American nurses from attending dances had to suspend his no-frolic order. (6)

Dickman, probably to reassure his wife he was walking the straight and narrow, did like many other military men have done. He ungallantly made fun of the looks of the women in the military sector. Writing about a previous affair, he told his wife: “At the 3d Corps dance there were 150 female nurses. No wonder that the women remaining in America are improving in looks.” (letter to his wife, from Coblenz, Germany 12/24/1918)

Dickman told his wife the Belgian, French, and British governments would be giving him medals. “The Serbian Prince Regent (later King Alexander of Yugoslavia, author’s note) changed his mind about coming, so I shall not have the order of the White Eagle Protector of Virgins, but perhaps the Portuguese order of Chastity, 3d class, may come along.” (letter to his wife, from Coblenz, Germany 2/17/1919)

At first I thought Dickman was joking about these “medals.” But he explained these two medals and made fun of them in a letter to his brother a week later. I have no idea what allowed a man to receive an Order of Chastity medal. Of course, European societies in that era were so much more debauched then America’s was back then. Dickman as an American had no personal contact with the Turks in the way the Serbs and other Balkan peoples had. “Protector of Virgins” was a real function of the fighting men of the Balkans who tried to keep their womenfolk as free from Turkish molestation as possible. Calling the Turks the scum of the earth for what they did to the girls and young women of Batak (the village whose rape and murder Januarius MacGahan reported) and many other villages in the Balkans, in Armenia, and among the Christian Maronites and Assyrians would be severe understatement.

Dickman, despite getting medals from the Allies, had no love for them. He made some good assessments of their problems in his letters home.

“The labor situation in England is very unsatisfactory and I don’t see any prospect of improvement. It is high time for consumers to force a league for self-protection. Both the English and French are afraid that the Germans with their industry and organization as against sabotage and lack of progress will capture the markets of the world. Hence, while expecting indemnities they are trying to keep the Germans from re-establishing their industries, which is the only thing that would make it possible to pay indemnities.” (letter to his brother, 2/25/1919)

“One proposition of the French is that the total expense of the war from the beginning in 1914 should be divided up pro rata. This would mean about 20 billions more for us to pay. Another scheme is that all the countries should contribute their share toward pensions. This would mean for us to pay about 115 millions each year and get back only 15 millions in pensions for our own people. Uncle Sam has been so easy that they think over here that he will stand for anything. Seems to me we have about reached the limit. And, we still have the Mexican trouble on our hands, and it may become acute at any time.”

“If Mr. Wilson carries through his plans for a League of Nations it will saddle us with a huge expense and responsibility and we will never get through paying taxes. We should leave Europe to regulate its own affairs and not undertake to govern and feed all the riff-raff of the world. We have problems and troubles of our own without hunting around for more.” (letter to his wife, from Coblenz, Germany 3/1/1919)

Dickman did not shrink from setting an example and braving enemy fire to show his troops he was cool under fire and they could trust his judgment. Likewise his bravado was evidence he trusted his men to hold the line against the enemy. Like all soldiers who had been shot at, Dickman took a dim view of those who stayed out of harm’s way. He had this to say to his friend the priest:

“You see, in spite of all the conscientious objectors, Pacifists, Quakers, persons with cold feet or too proud to fight and the host of “he kept us out of war” voters (particularly numerous in Ohio), there are still many young Americans who are willing to risk their lives for their country, and incidentally to protect the hides, women and property of the deadbeats classified above.” (letter to Father Russ, from Coblenz, Germany, 5/12/1919)

Dickman’s “too proud to fight” crack was a shot at Woodrow Wilson, who used the phrase in a speech. His “he kept us out of war” shot was another jab at Wilson, who used this as his dishonest campaign slogan when he sought re-election in 1916, shortly before he asked Congress for a declaration of war on Germany in April 1917.

While the Paris Peace Conference nabobs were nabobbing, the Allies kept the naval blockade in place against Germany and Central Europe, starving Germans, Poles, and residents of the former Austria-Hungary alike. Dickman realized the best way to heal from a war was to resume life. He said, “The delay in peace negotiations is very bad for the people who ought to make their plans for the coming year, prepare the ground and sow the grain.” (letter to his brother, 2/25/1919)

Dickman also revealed his sarcastic distaste for the politicians:

“I have been relieved from command, preparatory to going home. Our army on the Rhine will be down to 40,000 in a few days and soon even they will turn towards the sea and our great national adventure will be over except as to paying of taxes.” (letter to his sister, from Coblenz, Germany 5/15/1919)

Dickman in the early 1920s worried that Germany might seek Soviet help for a “war of liberation” if the French didn’t dial back their demands for more loot after the war. He said it would be possible for Allied pressure to collapse Germany’s industrial base, leading to widespread unemployment and Communist or other extremist seizure of power in Germany, and a potential alliance of these vermin with the Leninists in charge in the Soviet Union. Eventually, the Germans suffered hyperinflation, ongoing violence featuring the Communists and the Nazis, and a Nazi takeover. Then Hitler and Stalin put together the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 which paved the way for Hitler and Stalin to murder millions of Poles and for Hitler to order the invasion of France and the bombing of Britain. (7)

Dickman was wrong on one of his predictions. In a letter to his priest friend, he said, “Those who are returning will have something to say in the affairs of our nation. I think they will make it unpleasant for hypocrites and slackers.” (letter to Father Russ, from Coblenz, Germany, 5/12/1919)

Actually, American servicemen returned home to find the fundamentalists and the feminists had conspired to inflict Prohibition on America. This led to the strengthening of organized crime, whose leaders assisted corrupt Democrat and Republican politicians alike. Warren Harding’s administration would soon have a number of criminals; Franklin D. Roosevelt’s regime would later be overwhelmed by criminals, Communists and college-bred leftists.

Commander Jack Dempsey, holding rifle, rides a Coast Guard landing craft to the Okinawa Beach a few hours after the initial attack began on the Japanese Ryuku Island in April, 1945 during World War II. The former heavyweight champion is an officer in the U.S. Coast Guard. (AP Photo)

 

One of the few “slackers” who received some disapproval was rugged boxer and soon-to-be heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey. He claimed he did some shipyard work, but the publicity photo showed him wearing snazzy shoes clearly unsuitable for rugged work conditions. A jury acquitted Dempsey of draft evasion because he produced evidence he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars or the Red Cross at the request of government officials. Jack Dempsey would serve America in World War Two as a Coast Guard officer. He came under Jap fire while he was hitting the beach at Tarawa with marines young enough to be his sons. He would prove to be a hero on the battlefield as well as in the ring. (8)

 

Jack Johnson beats Jim Jeffries for the heavyweight title, 1910.

 

Ironically, a heavyweight boxer was denied his chance to fight for his country during World War One. Jack Johnson was the first black heavyweight boxing champion, and many whites in America despised him. Johnson had a habit of taunting his opponents and bantering with spectators in hostile fight crowds, long before Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali was a gleam in his parents’ eyes. This made Johnson an “uppity nigger” in the eyes of the bigoted. Johnson also liked to consort with pretty white women, which drove the bigoted batty.

Johnson wired a white female “escort” who was an acquaintance of his $75 so she could get to Chicago from Pittsburgh by train and have some extra spending money. When she got to Chicago, she checked into a hotel and he had sex with her in her hotel room. Prosecutors said this coupling was a violation of the Mann Act (a law designed to protect girls and young women from sex trafficking). Johnson fled to Europe to escape prosecution, because he knew he would be railroaded. During World War One, Johnson sought out Fiorello La Guardia, who was in Spain to expedite a steel shipment to help the war effort. La Guardia, a congressman from New York City, was also an Army aviation officer stationed in Italy at the time. Johnson told La Guardia he loved America and would volunteer for combat duty in exchange for a dropping of the trumped-up charges. La Guardia could not get the feds to drop the ridiculous charges against Johnson and make use of his services. Johnson eventually came home and served time. (9)

Johnson was not the only well-known man in that era who would pay for a crime he did not commit. General Billy Mitchell would be court-martialed for the offense of being smart enough to see the potential of air power — and for arguing with his superiors about it.

The businessmen and politicians sold out the men of service age. America would be unprepared for World War Two. Before World War Two, FDR was reduced to having civilian aviatrix Amelia Earhart spying on the Japanese. This led to her capture, serial sexual abuse, and probable decapitation not long before American servicemen took Saipan in 1944.

La Guardia and Harry Truman were two politicians who served as officers in World War One. As a congressman, La Guardia tried unsuccessfully to enact a law calling for the death penalty for the fraudulent sale of war materiel in wartime shortly before he entered the U.S. Army as an aviator. He was understandingly bitter that unscrupulous contractors had knowingly sold diseased food to the Army during the Spanish-American War, and these tainted rations had caused his father’s death. Apparently, no member of Congress has tried anything similar since then, because defense contractors continue to overcharge the American public and knowingly sell defective gear for the use of our servicemen and servicewomen. (10)

Truman, who was an artillery captain during the war, decided to save American lives by using atomic weapons on the Japanese instead of exposing American soldiers and marines and sailors and airmen to suicidal resistance by the Nipponese fanatics in their home islands. Only one president since Truman (Ronald Reagan) has even hinted he might use nuclear force; Reagan, along with Donald Trump, are the only two presidents after Truman who have not been among our below-average or worst presidents. (JFK died no thanks to LBJ and the Deep State before he could really show what he could do.)

Quentin Roosevelt, one of the many Americans who served in World War One, did not come back. German pilots shot him down in a dogfight over France on July 14, 1918, the day before Dickman and his division would refuse to retreat from the Germans.

The Germans buried Quentin Roosevelt with full military honors. His father Teddy Roosevelt wrote in tribute, “Only those are fit to live do not fear to die; and none are fit to die who have shrunk from the joy of life and the duty of life. Both life and death are part of the same Great Adventure … ”

Privately, TR mourned Quentin like any other father would do.

Archie, Theodore Jr., Quentin, and Kermit —

The Fighting Roosevelts.

 

American soldiers gave Quentin Roosevelt an even better tribute. Dickman’s men and other American soldiers soon drove the German lines back and Quentin’s grave was now in the American sector. American G.I.s walked from miles around to decorate his grave as a tribute to this young man who – unlike his cousin FDR – did not avoid military service simply because he was from a prominent family. Teddy’s other three sons Kermit, Archie, and Theodore were in uniform during World War One also. Archie and Theodore suffered wounds in combat; Kermit was luckier in combat. Teddy’s sons were every bit as manly as he was; they carried more than their share of the load for the nation.

Teddy Roosevelt tried to take up for Quentin, as Dickman figured the returning servicemen would. (La Guardia and Truman surely did.) He spent the remaining months of his heroic life attacking Wilson’s criminally negligent handling of the war and the peace treaties. Teddy held Wilson responsible for the inferior planes the French had issued to the Americans for the death of Quentin and other American aviators. Thanks to Wilson’s unpreparedness and his subordinates’ incompetence, there were hardly any American-made planes available for American aviators.

La Guardia backed Teddy up independently. The peppery New Yorker damned the few American-made planes as being “flying coffins.” La Guardia also refused to let his airmen use a certain type of Italian aircraft despite Italian pressure because it was grossly unsafe also. (11)

Ironically and sadly, Dickman’s own son Frederick was killed in a plane wreck in Georgia in 1919, while Dickman was still commanding an occupation force in Germany. The younger Dickman was in charge of the aviators at the airfield he crashed near. (12)

Joe Dickman wrote to Father Russ, “Fred was a fine man and inherited the lovely character of his mother. He took his life in his hands every day in the most dangerous service of his government. And after his interment in Arlington the heroic little mother cabled me her desire that I remain on duty in Europe until my work was done.” (5/12/1919)

Dickman also praised his wife Minnie and his deceased son in a letter to his sister two days later.

General Dickman was one of the best leaders of his era. He was fluent in several languages, he earned a law degree the year before World War One, and he participated in many events that shaped the destiny of this nation.

Certainly Dickman was wrong in his view of blacks. Sadly, he was a man of his era on this matter. President Woodrow Wilson was the worst sort of hypocrite on this issue; the first leftist icon in the White House enforced and expanded segregation in federal facilities. Wilson and Southern Democrats who came around to the idea of giving women the vote responded at least in part to the pitch of some suffragette leaders who claimed – racistly and falsely – that white women should vote because they were smarter and less corruptible than black men. Wilson also had people imprisoned who disagreed with his conduct of the war, this president’s hirelings presided over the Red Scare.

An officer who assessed General Dickman said he determined a man’s character before entrusting him with serious responsibility. He said Dickman believed people give too much credence to a man’s intellect and not enough to his character in judging his fitness to serve and to lead. Another officer said Dickman was not a grouch or a distant figure, but was essentially a genial man who used humor to help make his points and instruct his subordinates. (13)

Dickman and men like him were responsible for the training, discipline, arming, supplying, transporting, sanitation, and medical treatment of many thousands of men. They preserved order and protected civilians. They represented the government of the United States. Their rewards were insufficient for their service, but money didn’t motivate these people like it motivates too many others, especially in our time now. The sense of adventure, and the sense of service motivated men like Joe Dickman. By and large, his life’s work greatly aided the United States.

By comparison, the average college professor or psychologist or government employee or student who looks down on military officers today would starve if he or she had to live off the land. And it wouldn’t surprise me if most of these self-styled elitists who criticize the intellect of our military people would regularly get lost driving across town without access to GPS.

 

SHERLOCK JUSTICE
WE CAN SHOW YOU HOW TO BE YOUR OWN DETECTIVE.

 

END NOTES

1. The Pullman strike happened because railroad car manufacturer and robber baron George Pullman laid off 40 percent of his workers, and slashed their wages by 25 percent, while keeping rents in the company town they had to live in at the same level. American Railway Union leader Eugene Debs organized the Pullman workers, and got railroad workers in half the states to refuse to hook Pullman cars onto trains. The railway hub of much of the country was Chicago, and it was in Chicago that a number of more radical union men and some out-and-out criminals started holding up trains and fouling up freight traffic. Of course, the railroad bosses who already had their hired killers and goons in strikebreaker mode lied about the extent of the disorders and screamed the rioters were trying to overthrow American society.

President Grover Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago to ensure trains could pass through the city safely. Mail and most interstate travelers and freight traveled by rail then. Rioters – very few of whom were union men — burned railroad cars and smashed tracks when the troops arrived. Federal troops and hired corporate goons responded with force of their own. The authorities unfairly pinned blame for the violence on Debs and other union leaders. Prosecutors misused the new Sherman Anti-Trust Act against the union people, much like later prosecutors would abuse the RICO laws to persecute people protesting against abortion providers. Debs and some other union men served prison terms for interfering with mail delivery. Cleveland, by nature a moderate and an honorable man, looked like a corporate puppet for using federal force and federal law to break a strike for Pullman and the other railroad robber barons.

2. An excellent discussion of how “Black Jack” Pershing faced down the frauds in uniforms and the frauds in frock coats over the issue of a separate American army in Europe comes from Thomas Fleming’s book The Illusion of Victory. Of course, it would have been illegal and unconstitutional to allow Americans to serve under a foreign flag, but Wilson loved Britain more than he loved his own country, so it could have happened. It has happened since then, with American forces serving under the United Nations blue and white dishrag. But most of the recent presidents have cared little for American sovereignty. The size of the trade deficit, the sorry joke that has been border security, the status of port security, and the deference to the United Nations by the many opponents of President Trump prove that.

3. One source of information for the origin of the popular U.S. Marine slogan, “Retreat, hell! We just got here!” was Colonel Red Reeder’s book The Story of the First World War. Colonel Reeder lost a leg in the Normandy invasion in World War Two. He was in his 70s when he addressed us cadets in the mess hall one day. He was still enthusiastic about the service and about life.

4. One source of information for Dickman’s remarks is the 3rd Infantry Division Society. Another was an article in the Chicago Post. I obtained a copy of the typed text of the article from the University of Notre Dame Archives.

5. Dickman was quoted in a eulogy article that ran in the Ohio State Journal in 1927. I obtained a copy of the typed text from the University of Notre Dame Archives.

6. The source of information for the ball Dickman hosted, and of the sourpuss surgeon general who had been banning his nurses from attending dances is a wire service story dated January 11, 1919. I obtained a copy of the typed text from the University of Notre Dame Archives.

7. The source of information for Dickman’s thoughts on Germany, Russia, and France is an undated wire service article. I obtained a copy of the typed text from the University of Notre Dame Archives.

8. An information source on boxing all-timer Jack Dempsey is Paul Sann’s book The Lawless Decade (pages 56-60).

9. Information sources on Jack Johnson include the book This Fabulous Century: 1900-1910 (pages 200-201), and Fiorello La Guardia’s autobiography The Making of an Insurgent (pages 192-193). Another source was a legal brief written by attorney John Siegal in 2004 in support of pardoning Jack Johnson posthumously for the ridiculous conviction that sent him to prison. Siegal confirmed the brief to me in a phone interview in May 2006. President Trump did pardon Jack Johnson and clear his name, after Barack Obama and the Bushes and Clintons refused to do so.

10. The information source on La Guardia’s attempts to punish profiteers with the death sentence is his book The Making of an Insurgent (page 146).

11. The source for Teddy Roosevelt’s eulogy for his son Quentin was Nathan Miller’s book Theodore Roosevelt: A Life (page 562). The sources of information on the circumstances of Quentin’s death, his burial, American military men’s tribute to him, Teddy Roosevelt’s anger at Wilson over the sorry planes his son and other American pilots had to fly, and Fiorello La Guardia’s independent confirmation of the aircraft fiasco include Thomas Fleming’s book The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I (pages 232-235), and The Making of an Insurgent (pages 157-160).

12. The information source on the death of Frederick Dickman was the Army and Navy Register obituary for his father, courtesy of the University of Notre Dame Archives.

13. The source of information for the officers’ quotes on General Dickman is an undated article in the New York Times Magazine, written while he was still in the Army, courtesy of the University of Notre Dame Archives.

14. General Joseph Dickman is one of the forgotten heroes of this nation. There are many military and civilian leaders of society like him who contributed to the advance of our nation that we never hear of. I chose to write about General Dickman as one of these men because of the letters he wrote explaining what he was doing.

As a soldier with much humbler accomplishments than those of General Dickman, I had to laugh at his sarcasm and learn from his insights. Technology changes tactics, but human insight and character are timeless.

On the issue of “allies,” Dickman was completely right. I had my share of run-ins with officers from our “Allies” Britain, Germany, and Japan during my time in uniform. They were not happy when I said our soldiers having sex with their females was improving their national gene pools.

Our dear allies the British tried to suppress American independence, they burned the White House during the War of 1812, they helped the South against the North in the Civil War, they used our women and children as human shields for arms shipments during World War One (thanks, Winston Churchill for that one), they scammed us into getting into World War One, and they tried a similar stunt to try to scam us into getting into World War Two, which their greed and cowardice helped cause. (Of course the Japs and Hitler succeeded where the Brits failed, in regards to World War Two. They learned the hard way not to mess with Uncle Sam, especially when Harry Truman had The Bomb and was not afraid to use them.) With allies like them, who needs enemies? Bottom line? America has allies everywhere, and friends nowhere.

On the issue of women in uniform, Dickman did – like many many American men in uniform – joke about the women’s looks. As I mentioned, some of this is designed to keep the womenfolk at home unworried about the possibility they might stray with their female comrades-in-arms. Some of this obviously is part of male humor in general, which tends to be vulgar, often hilariously so. Little of it is due to caveman-style sexism, like the militant feminists (hardly any of them troubled to put on a uniform themselves, or soap or deodorant, for that matter) claim.

I served in an infantry unit and in air defense artillery units attached to infantry units during my short career in the U.S. Army. There were no women in these units. However, I earlier served with a number of young women who made history in this country.

I was a cadet at West Point in my sophomore year when Congress authorized the admission of young women to the national military academies. They reported the summer of my junior year as part of the Class of 1980. I trained them and their male classmates in soldier skills my senior year. A number of girls from the following class were subordinates of mine in my company.

I did my share of joking about the “girls.” But they were a whole lot more patriotic and dedicated than the average coed in college in the 1970s. I used to tell civilians my age the girls at my college could beat up the girls at their colleges … and probably a lot of the guys at their colleges!

The most dedicated and thorough reviewer of my work as a historian was a female officer and paratrooper out of the Class of 1980. She became a businesswoman after her time in the Army, then gave up her wealth to become a Catholic nun. Another woman who gave me a great deal of encouragement for this project was a female cadet from the Class of 1980. And of my former subordinates, one of them, a young lady from the Class of 1981, was a colonel when I first researched General Dickman. They are all fine women and patriots, and none of them has anything to apologize for in the way of looks, either.

All of the letters cited are dated instead of formally footnoted; these came from the University of Notre Dame Archives. One of General Dickman’s relatives had donated his letters and various newspaper clippings and U.S. Army information concerning Dickman and World War One to Notre Dame. The archivists at the University of Notre Dame helped me greatly with my research for this book. Again, I commend them for their scholasticism and charity. They are not to blame for my interpretation of the sources their work made possible for me to use.

General Joseph Dickman was merely a name to me when I first studied the strategy and tactics of World War One. But he and people like him make history – and his letters and the written testimony of those who knew him gave a picture of an intelligent, manly, and dedicated man. There are many more out there like him whose deeds justify the work of good historians to bring their memories back to life so that this generation and those who follow can learn from them and appreciate how they approached the challenges in their lives.

 

EXTRA CREDIT:

Two of King Nikola of Montenegro’s daughters married members of the Romanov family in Russia. One of them, Anastasia, married Grand Duke Nicholas, the uncle of Tsar Nicholas II and the leader of the Russian army at the start of World War One. Her sister Militsa years earlier had married his brother Peter. And another became Queen Jelena of Italy, who personally cooked the royal family’s meals. One of her snooty in-laws called her “the Shepherdess.”

Princess Mafalda of Italy and two of her children.

RIP, Princess Mafalda.

 

Jelena’s daughter Princess Mafalda, a known anti-Hitler operative in Italy, was captured by the Nazis, raped, and thrown into the Buchenwald concentration camp, where the Nazis allowed her to bleed to death after she was seriously wounded in a bombing raid. (The camp’s prisoners were forced to manufacture explosives for the Germans, so the bomb factory was a target. Mafalda was in the barracks near the factory when the raid happened, but was not a bomb maker.)

Pope Pius XII hid out Princess Mafalda’s children, along with hundreds of Italian Jews, from the Nazis.

Mafalda’s husband, a German prince related to the English nobility, was also imprisoned but survived the war.

Montenegro’s King Nikola, his pretty daughters and their down-to-earth natures, and a lecherous public official from that country who was the center of a scandal some years earlier fired the imagination of composer Franz Lehar. He reworked the plot of a play into a romantic comedy about a poor country whose leaders were trying to get a wealthy young widow (the country’s largest taxpayer) to marry one of her countrymen instead of falling for some gigolo in Paris. He used many personal names and geographical terms from the impoverished little country in his story. The result was the beloved operetta The Merry Widow.

Those who “imported” The Merry Widow from Vienna changed character and country names in part for their own purposes, and in part not to hurt the feelings of the people of Montenegro. Jeanette MacDonald starred in the movie as Madame Sonia, the widow from Marsovia. This movie was a special favorite of my mother’s.

Jeannette MacDonald and Maurice Chevalier in a still from “The Merry Widow”

 

 

My Granny Ruth said Jeanette McDonald sang “The Merry Widow Waltz” at her own funeral (on a record, of course) when she and Mom stopped in at Forest Lawn Cemetery with many other Jeanette McDonald fans to pay her last respects. One of our family friends played one of the showgirls of Paris in a revival of The Merry Widow. And when 99 and I married, we came down our parish church aisle together to “The Merry Widow Waltz.” Mom and Dad, who had gone on to their reward, would have smiled fondly.

Why do I mention this today?

Because we married on a Veterans Day many years ago. I never forget an anniversary. And I can say two things Bill Clinton can’t say …. I’m a veteran and a happily married man.

Sherlock