Martin Treptow

[PHenry]

For Memorial Day, as a tribute to the many who have fallen, I would offer the following. I would also say it offers each of us good counsel for Appleseeding

Martin August Treptow was a barber from Cherokee, Iowa.  Enlisting in the National Guard, during World War I his unit was called up and Treptow found himself in the 168th Infantry, part of the 42nd Division, called the Rainbow Division by Major Douglas MacArthur, who would rise during the War to eventually command the division, because it consisted of National Guard units that stretched across the country like a rainbow.

July 30th, 1918 was a hard day for the division.  Participating in the Second Battle of the Marne which stopped the last major German offensive of the War and saved Paris from capture, the division was attempting to take Hill 212 on La Croix Rouge Farm and incurring heavy casualties.  A message from Treptow's unit needed to be taken to another platoon.  Private Treptow did not hesitate, but grabbed the message and ran off with it.  As he neared the platoon leader to deliver the message, Treptow was cut down by a burst of German fire.  He was twenty-five years old.  Sergeant  Joyce Kilmer was killed on the same day, in the same battle, a little bit later.  Go here to read about him.

As his personal effects were being gathered up, this was found on the flyleaf of the diary he kept:

America must win this war.   I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone.


While ours is a struggle only for hearts and minds, it seems yo me that this would serve as the bar to which we each might aspire. 

[Engineer shooting]

Sergeant Joyce Kilmer, another young man, who was killed soon after Martin on July 30th before he left for France wrote an eloquent poem about war:

"In a wood they call the Rouge Bouquet
There is a new-made grave to-day,
Built by never a spade nor pick
Yet covered with earth ten meters thick.
There lie many fighting men,
Dead in their youthful prime,
Never to laugh nor love again
Nor taste the Summertime."

For the honored dead he continued

"There is on earth no worthier grave
To hold the bodies of the brave
Than this place of pain and pride
Where they nobly fought and nobly died."

Martin was returned home to the USA for burial.  Joyce Kilmer was buried in France.