The Last Of The Doughboys: The Forgotten Generation and Their Forgotten World War

After reading several of the reviews of Richard Rubin's excellent book, The Last of the Doughboys, I thought I might throw in my two cents in an informal way.I saw Doughboys was going to be made public early in 2013. The title caught my eye, as I have been interested in WWI history the past few years. Interviewing the last remaining veterans of the Great War was a terrific concept. A good deal of American military history focus has of course been on the Civil War and World War II for decades. As a teacher of American history, I have had my students interview veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, as well as civilian Americans for other social histories. As Mr. Rubin expertly points out, WWI history and its veterans are and were indeed overshadowed if not outright ignored in the post WWII years. This book goes a long way correcting that oversight.When I added Doughboys to my reading list I thought the book would be exclusively about the interviews with WWI veterans. I was also very happily mistaken. The Last of the Doughboys is a narrative not only of the veterans and Mr. Rubin's story about tracking them down. The book is story of America, its cultures, ways, ideals, economy, people, and so much more covering a time period from the post Civil War to the early 21st Century.This was obviously no easy task to accomplish. But in fact, the more I read, the more insight I gained about what America was like in those days and what we are often like today, as individuals and as a people. Mr. Rubin accomplished his goals handsomely.I enjoyed the book so much that I plan to use it in my class. Mr. Rubin covers a good deal of territory in his narrative and a good deal of it is material that I cover in class. There are excellent examples that are too numerous to mention here that make the history personable and real.The book is also a treasure trove of resource material and is the only book I have seen which makes the argument that the Great War can be understood through the music it inspired. Primary sources abound.I should also draw attention to how "readable" Doughboys is. The narrative is fresh and lively. Mr. Rubin not only interviews veterans and gives a good history lesson, he has a conversation with the reader and makes the reader a part of the adventure.

When I purchased this book, it was with some hesitation. I was looking for some well-researched background for a small part of a book I am writing. I also had an interest because one of my grandfathers was severely wounded in the Argonne, just a couple of weeks before the Armistice. Not only was I so pleasantly surprised by the depth and quality of the work, I was deeply moved by the people themselves.Mr. Rubin is an excellent writer; maybe even better than that. I only hope that I will be able to write as well when I have practiced the craft for another twenty years. But what captured me the most were the moving interviews with these, now all gone, men and women who fought in an unappreciated war that moved the United States into the big leagues of world power. I loved the sensitivity he demonstrated as he interviewed veterans who were all more than one hundred years of age. I loved how he seemed to feel their sense of deep loss, and their deep excitement at being part of such a monumental event. This work is a job very well done. I will read it again one day, just to savor the many little bits I missed. The first reading moved me greatly. I hope the second will make me wiser.One last comment: I was between four and five stars for this book. It probably deserves the five, but I gave it four only because I did not share the author's passion for the songs and slogans of that war, which consumed some amount of space. It is a petty reason I admit. But I will gladly read more of his work.

This remarkable book is the story of the people, times, and conditions of life for the few remaining World War I veterans able to recount their lives to the author. It is also an extraordinary account of the authors efforts to find these forgotten characters of history. They were ordinary men and women, whose lives were forever changed by their experiences during World War I and before and after. The author's sensitivity to the difficulties of capturing their stories, all were well over 100 years old when he interviewed them, is a truly faithful account of their lives. It puts the horrors and madness of unending trench warfare, into a wider account of what many experienced - not only in those trenches, but behind the scenes. There are men who built those trenches, who supplied them, who buried the dead, as well as men who killed and were killed, captured and were wounded. In his accounts of their war-time lives, the author is able to present a comprehensive story about the times and the lives of his main characters with remarkable clarity. These were ordinary and yet extraordinary people, who were largely forgotten. He found them, not from US military and veterans records but from the French records and that nation's recognition and awards to the AEF soldiers who still lived into the 21st century.This is a lengthy tribute to them and to their lives, and should remind us of that "worst of all wars" which brought the next one, and still resounds in the stories of those who still fight wars. I highly recommend this book to those who want to understand American history and the many unknown characters whose lives and stories make us all human. It's a long but truly compelling read; told with affection, humor, and well-researched history. It is the story of people brought alive by the author's brilliant interview skills and writing, well-organized presentation, and remarkable skill in reporting the reality of these unforgettable men and women, now no longer with us.

In the first five years or so of this century, the author travelled to interview as many living American veterans of World War I as he could find, and based his book on the interviews. All of the veterans were centenarians, some over 110. One had been married to his wife, also a centenarian, for eighty-three years! Some gave long coherent accounts of their war experiences, while some were too old to say much. But the results make a deeply fascinating and at some times moving book. Rubin has mixed these interviews with sections on subjects such as popular music, much of which can be found on Youtube--as an example "When the Kaiser Does a Two-Step to a Good Old American Rag," with books published at the time about the war, the politics of the war, and other subjects. I'm not particularly interested in military history, much of which is pretty dry, but this is written in a chatty and personal style. I could hardly put this book down, and I'll thinking about it for a long time.

“The Last of the Doughboys” is the result of Author Richard Rubin’s coast to coast quest to interview the last surviving American veterans of World War I. Spread over several years his interviews of dozens of men over the age of 100 is entertaining and edifying on several levels. The author makes use of many quotes in his narrative. Just the recognition that centenarians are different from other people as evidenced by the fact that they lived as long as they did and that they preserved dialects and vocabularies lost to younger generations is a point often made.. Their varied experiences from the training camps, transportation, front, trenches, and even stateside service fill in gaps not ordinarily neglected in histories of the war. Their later lives complete out their claim to being a pretty fair generation themselves. The veterans’ memories are supplemented by Rubin’s summaries of the “big stories”, the histories of the organization of the units, the delivery (The Navy Did Not Lose a Doughboy), the battles they fought and their return home.I am glad I selected “The Last of the Doughboys”. I learned a lot about the troops who carried the Stars and Stripes into the Great War. It provides a reminder to appreciate the elderly among us, and triggered a sense of remorse that I never asked my grandfather or uncles about their service, but Richard Rubin did not think of it until long after they were gone. I recommend it to any student of World War I, early 20th century America or anyone just looking for a good story