World War I – Page 1 April 24, 1964 FCS World War I an Account of My Personal Experiences in World War I Written From
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World War I – Page 1 April 24, 1964 FCS World War I An account of my personal experiences in World War I written from my recollections as the have emerged after a period of 47 years. Yesterday I concluded an account of my personal experiences in World War II. I have tied them up, placed them in a sealed package marked “personal and private” and placed them in my records. Today I am beginning on World War I as I feel that if I should delay I would never get back to them. In beginning my account of World War II I started off with an apology or an explanation of why I was taking the time and trouble to set down my personal experiences. I tried to place the blame on my lack of information about the military experiences in the War Between the States (or more correctly The War to Preserve the U. S. Constitution) of my maternal great-grandfather and my grandfather and my paternal grandfathers, and how much I would have valued such an account. I assumed a very altruistic motive of trying to provide for my grand-nieces and nephews a record of my experiences in the hope that they would find it interesting. I had no reason to believe that it would be valuable. However, in writing about World War II I found myself going back through all of my accumulated records, pictures, letters, and clippings, to say nothing of books, and I think that there was a much deeper motive, one of which a person might not be so proud. It is a more egotistical motive, and for some reason or other, perhaps due to the influence of the Freudian myth; anything egotistical cannot be good. I cannot ascribe to this 'myth' for it appears to me that one of the most fundamental drives of any living creature, including man, is the drive for survival - and that is in its final analysis egotistical. Of course, such a drive for survival in its lowest, or animal, expression is the most brutal and degrading of human actions, but in its highest, or idealistic, expression is the highest and most-God-like of human endeavors. I still think that an ‘enlightened self-interest' has done more to promote human development and happiness than any other. In looking through my old records, which go back to 1900, 1 found that even in my early youth I had developed a sort of mania for saving papers, letters, clippings, trophies, and records of events in which I had played some part. And usually those that I saved happened never to show my participation in a bad light! I cannot say whether this indicated a sort of self-glorification indicating a proud, self admiring attitude, or on the contrary indicated an effort to seek something that would build up an attitude so that I would not hate myself for my weaknesses! Nor can I answer that now. Nevertheless I did have a disposition to save written records of those events that related to me or my family. Perhaps it is best to simply label this is being 'historical' minded or 'historically inclined' and let it go at that. My father seemed to have this same inclination as witnessed by the fact that he saved in a chronological file, which I still have all of the letters written by him to his four sons after they left home to enter college, and all of their letters to him. Now that I have passed what is known as the age of retirement, which for some arbitrary reason is now taken to be 65 years of age, maybe am in a better position to pass some judgments upon my life. As Michel de Montaigne remarked, 'I never knew what my theories of life were until it was nearly over and done.’ Perhaps now that mine is also about over and done, I have the right to presume to draw some conclusions as to my theories as to why I thought and did at the time, although at the time I was not conscious of being guided by any theories. World War I - page 2 April 24, 1964 - FCS I simply lived, and lived happily, unconscious of the relative state of poverty of my parents, and the constant struggle that they must have had in meeting the daily necessities of a large family. I know now that they had to struggle, but their children never knew anything of this struggle until they were nearly grown. I lived simply, but with pride and dignity. And a sense of duty and responsibility, with the rewards that these entailed, was a constant part of our lives. We were raised on very strict principles, set up by our father and agreed to by our mother, and our actions were guided by these principles regardless of what other children our ages were allowed to do. My father was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and had been since he was 21 years of age, 6 years before he was married. He took his religion seriously and practiced it, but did not try to force his beliefs on any one - except his children for whom he assumed total responsibility. His beliefs included a very stern and strict sense of duty. It seemed to permeate his whole life, and I believe that he instilled his same belief in his children. He could tolerate failure but he could not tolerate anything less than a total effort. He was, in my opinion, a very fine man, a very strong man, and a very sympathetic man. He was in no sense a sentimentalist. He had an aversion to everything military, possibly as a result of his experiences with the Federal army of occupation after the War between the States. He despised the military mind and the military life, and rightly so. He would let us have nothing to do with the military units (civilian) in the city. He was a very proud man. Not in the sense of a superior attitude towards anyone else of either color. He punished me severely one day because of my disrespectful remarks and attitude towards Uncle George, the negro man who worked around the house. His pride was not in a comparison of other men, but rather in his refusal to depart from his principles for some immediate gain or advantage. He was proud of his ‘family' and showed this in his refusal to allow them to do anything of which the 'family’could not be proud. We were quite literally a very, poor but a very proud family! He was also an uncomplaining person, not that he did not have a strong temper, one that got out of hand once in a while, but he never blamed his condition, good or bad., upon others or upon circumstances. I never once heard him make any disparaging remarks about the ‘Yankee soldiers’ or the U. S. Government w who destroyed or took all of his worldly goods, and kept him in a condition of poverty by ‘legal’ means, some of-which were later declared unconstitutional. He took whatever life had to offer, unflinching, and kept his head up and his heart driving in spite of all reverses. He was a man of courage and fortitude. He had an unshakeable belief in the efficacy of education. In fact, he almost worshipped ‘book larning'. His early education consisted of about three periods of three months each of formal schooling, the remainder coming through his parents and his own efforts at home. As a young man of about 18 years he was the school master of a school set up by his father, George Edward Shepard, on his plantation near Topsail Sound. In this school he tried to teach all of the children of the neighbor hood, including negro and white. He played the violin as a part of the training by his parents, both of whom were college graduates. After he became an official of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, Freight Claim Agent, in Wilmington, N. C. about 1908, he entered a night School of Law taught by a lawyer., and received his law license for the State of North Carolina after he was 45 years of age. He did this to better prepare himself for his work in the freight claim department of the railroad and never attempted a private practice. He was a man of dignity. Not a pompous, austere sort of dignity., but a calm, quiet dignity that grew of itself from his deep convictions and steadiness of character. He always carried himself erect with his eyes straight forward. He often World War I - page 3 April 27, 1964 - FCS smiled but seldom laughed. Although only about 5 feet 8 inches in height, and about 160 pounds, he gave the impression of size and strength. His steel blue eyes and close cropped moustache added to this impression. He was never condescending, but he never lowered his level to meet others; this he would have considered a reflection on them. In his relation with his children he was always "papa" - never did he become one of them as "buddy". This did not effect our love for him but it did increase or maintain our respect for him and what he stood for. We never addressed him except with “Sir”, nor did we address our mother except as "Ma'am". In short our parents were never children with us: they were our parents and remained so. We looked up to them and they gave us strength.