Dripping Life

As we observed Veterans’ Day earlier this week, I was among the thousands of Texans who are forever grateful for the sacrifices made by our veterans and their families during times of war and peace. My gratitude is matched by millions more Americans for the courage, bravery and patriotism these men and women display as they put God and country ahead of their own well-being.

I also stopped to consider the changing ways of war, beginning with World War I…and in this part of the state, Texans were described as being interested in WW I from the beginning when Europe’s political stance was identified in 1914. The news of Germany sinking the Lusitania, May 7, 1915 (with 1198 lives lost, including 128 U.S. citizens, fostered a Texas Senate resolution urging the U.S. to end relations with Germany, but that wasn’t the only troubling incident.

Closer to home, Germany believed by whipping the winds of war between Mexico and the U.S., this would divert any support the U.S. would give to her allies. So, Germany continued its strategy, ratcheting up efforts to set Mexico’s President Carranza, military and outlaw Pancho Villa against the U.S.

When Villa raided Columbus, NM, in March 1916, Gen. John J. Pershing retaliated by calling up the Texas National Guard. But that didn’t stop Germany’s attempts to cause conflict between the two countries. 

The next year, in January, Germany sent a secret telegram (later known as the Zimmermann Letter), transmitted in code for the German ambassador in Washington to forward to the Mexican president. It promised if Mexico would join Germany and encourage Japan to join the Central Powers, Germany would help Mexico reclaim lost territories in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. 

Texas citizens were outraged. So was the rest of the nation…and threats against the United States contained in the Zimmermann Letter were the last straw. On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson, now seen as a politically incompetent president, asked Congress to declare war against Germany. Four days later, Congress complied. 

Imagine simply the difference in arms and armament counted on by those heroes of World War I compared to the weapons our troops use today. Or the difference in communications technology, making it possible for soldiers and their families to speak or do face time today, compared to sending letters through censors and then the mail service – that took months back in the first Great War. 

Through voluntary enlistments, close to 200,000 Texas sons, husbands and fathers saw service in the 36th Infantry Division and 19th Division during the 18-month-long war. More than 450 Texas women served as nurses.

At least 5,170 Texans died in the armed services, including seven women serving in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps. Of the war dead, 4,748 served in the army, and more than one-third of these deaths were attributed to the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. 

By mid-1917, the Aviation Section of the U.S. Army Signal Corps began constructing 28 new training fields and schools for aviators and ground support personnel.  The nine fields built in Texas included Brooks Field in San Antonio (later Brooks Air Force Base), Kelly Field in San Antonio (later Kelly Air Force Base) and Rich Field in Waco. 

Central Texas military camps established to train men for service were Camp MacArthur at Waco, Camp Travis at San Antonio and an officers' training school, the Leon Springs Military Reservation at Leon Springs, outside San Antonio.

During World War I, as troop strength soared to beyond 50,000 at Fort Sam Houston and the adjacent Camp Travis, the army leased 15,427 more acres south of Fort Sam, and began adding training facilities. In the western part of the reservation, there were cantonments for cavalry and field artillery, Camp Samuel F. B. Morse (a Signal Corps training camp), a remount station, and an officer training camp. 

A tent camp was set up on the newly-leased land for the Ninetieth Division troops mobilizing at Camp Travis. In September 1917, the Ninetieth Division designated this tent camp, “Camp Bullis” in honor of Brig. Gen. John Lapham Bullis, Indian fighter and leader of the Seminole Scouts. 

The next month -- October 1917 -- the War Department designated the facilities in the western part of the reservation as Camp Stanley in honor of Brig. Gen. David S. Stanley, Medal of Honor recipient during the Civil War. By the end of the First World War, the army had spent $1,350,000 developing the facilities at the Leon Springs Military Reservation 

Between November 1917 and April 1918, Canada’s Royal Flying Corps trained pilots and support personnel for the U.S. Army Air Service at fields around Fort Worth. Ultimately, the RFC Canada trained 10 squadrons for the U.S. Army Air Service that served in Europe between December 1917 and March 1918.  The Aviation Section (renamed U.S. Army Air Service) established eight ground training schools throughout the state, including one at the University of Texas at Austin.  

Meanwhile on the home front, many Central Texas women joined the workforce, particularly war widows. Homemakers most often worked with the Texas State Council of Defense, an agency that placed certain restrictions on civilians under the direction of the National Council of Defense, on the customary freedoms of speech and press. 

Public schools “were equipped with a suitable flag and ordered to spend at least 10 minutes each school teaching intelligent patriotism.”

"Give Till It Hurts," "Do Your Bit," "Buy More Bonds," and other slogans rapidly found a place in the popular mind. Texans of every ethnicity bought Liberty and Victory Bonds and War Savings Stamps and contributed to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and other wartime organizations. 

Aside from making bandages for the wounded and knitting warm socks and scarves for American servicemen, Central Texas women also participated in the food-conservation program known as "Hooverizing," which mandated wheatless Mondays and Wednesdays, meatless Tuesdays, and porkless Thursdays and Saturdays. They conserved fat and sugar every day. War victory gardens were planted, and Texas farmers devoted new space to food crops. War industries established in the state benefited temporarily. The war ended on November 11, 1918.

Once “the boys” came marching home again, many were struck down by the raging Spanish Flu epidemic. As the disease spread from its southeast coast origins, it wasn’t unusual for families to lose several members within days to the disease. As one great-grandmother remembered, there were several pregnant women in her Charleston, SC neighborhood who contracted the flu after childbirth and died.

In sharing her family’s history, Texan Judy Shubert found old letters that revealed flu’s horrific impact. Her Great-Aunt Lucy died of the flu while traveling. Lucy’s parents, living in Millsap, received this devastating letter from a family friend she was visiting: “Dear friend it is with a sad, sad heart, one that is broken—broken to tell you that we laid your darling at rest with our darling boys all in one lot and at the same time, Jan. Sat. 4 at 3 o’clock. Lucy died Dec. 30, my little darling baby went home Dec. 31, and my two boys went New Year’s Day. O you can’t know how hard it was to give up three at once and a true friend, too. All that loving hands could do was done. They all looked like they was (sic) asleep and so they were in the arms of our savior. We can’t understand why the Lord does these things but he will make all clear someday.”

The double blow of “the war to end all wars” and history’s deadliest illness left a wake of devastating loss around the globe. The affected families, for the most part, didn’t pass down the stories of their tragedies. It didn’t matter how death came; its finality silenced a generation.

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