France. Armée. Légion étrangère; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
=F. Capdevielle=, New Yorker, splendid fellow, after a year in the
Foreign Legion changed to the 170th, where he rose to be sergeant. But a
young man, he has a great record for longevity, having been through the
successive attacks of the two regiments volonté, without receiving a
scratch, though he was used up physically in the spring of 1917, and put
in a couple of months recuperating in Paris. He was decorated for
gallantry, at Verdun, in the spring of 1916.
=Tony Pollet=, champion boxer, from Corona, New York, came to America
with his parents, had his first papers—was the tallest, best-built man
in his company—a terror on wrong doers—in social life as gentle as a
woman. The boxing match between him and Bob Scanlon at Auxelle Bas,
Alsace, will pass down in the traditions of the Legion for all time.
Later Tony whipped the three cooks. He was put in charge of the kitchen
for punishment; but he got into disgrace again because the Legionnaires
caught a pet cat, skinned it and threw it into the soup.
Living on his income of one cent a day, as he had no money, too proud to
expose his financial condition, he did not go to Paris, July 4, 1915,
but suffered his martyrdom in silence. Wounded in Champagne in 1915,
also on the Somme in 1916, when permission came for a furlough in
America, he had forty-two cents. He stowed away on a Trans-Atlantic
steamer to New York, where the authorities claimed, he was not an
American. If he had declared his intention to be an American, he had
lost the evidence of it. So they locked him up two days at Ellis Island.
When in hospital one night, he stole out to see his girl, caught, and
standing before the medical board, who threatened to revoke his
convalescence, he replied hotly—“You do that, and I will make you more
trouble than you can shake off the rest of your life. You must not think
you are handling a Legionnaire from Africa now;—I will show you what a
real American Legionnaire can do!” The old Colonel, a judge of men,
spoke up;—“Silence yourself. Attention, eyes front, about face, forward
march.” Tony walked away; but he got his furlough.
=George Peixotto=, painter by profession, brother of the President of
the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, joined the Foreign Legion and
was detailed to the 22nd artillery. Now, instead of making life-like
figures, he makes figures lifeless!
=Bullard.= After the Champagne attack, in 1915, was changed from the
Legion to the 170th, then again into the Aviation. A busy man, he
managed to dodge the Boche bouquets, and, so far, he has kept right side
up with care. Always likes to have Old Glory in sight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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