His Own Life Story and War Diary Text extracted from opening pages of book: HIS OWN LIFE STORY AND WAR DIARY EDITED BY TOM SKEYHILL GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK DOUBLEDAY, DORAN AND COMPANY, INC. 1930 TO OUR OWN LEAGUE OF NATIONS The American-born boys and the Greeks, Irish, Poles, Jews, and Italians who were in my platoon in the World War. A heap of them couldn't speaker write the American language until they larned it in the Army. Over here in the training camps and behind the lines in France a right-smart lot of them boozed, gambled, cussed, and went A. W. O. L. But once they got into it Over There they kept on a-going. They were only tollable shots and burned up a most awful lot of ammunition. But jest the same they always kept on a-going. Most of them died like men, with their rifles and bayonets in their hands and their faces to the enemy. I'm a-thinkin* they were real heroes. Any way they were my buddies. Ijes learned to love them. SERGEANT ALVIN C. YORK. FOREWORD MODERN war is an industrial art conducted like a great modern integrated industry. Improved means of transportation have made it possible to assemble and sustain vastly greater numbers of men upon rela tively narrow fronts, and these fronts become massing points upon which the adversaries concentrate their weight. Machine guns, long-range cannon, tanks, and airplanes are the modern weapons, and they represent the culmination of a tendency which has existed from the earliest times. Originally men fought face to face at short range with swords and battle axes. They separated the lines of combatants a short distance by the introduction of slings and arrows. The invention of gunpowder fur ther separated them* More powerful explosives and metals of strongertension have again increased the distance, until men now fight without seeing one an other, but aim their destructive missies over inter vening hills to places located by airplane observation. The directing heads of great armies are far to the rear-General Pershing's head [...] Autor: Tom Skeyhill Wydawnictwo: Skeyhill Press Rok wydania: 2008 Okładka: miękka Liczba stron: 352 Wymiary: 22.2 x 14.5 x 2.6 cm Język: angielski ISBN: 9781443730907