Just a few days prior, we aided the US troops in the First Infantry Division to capture the village of Cantigny. It was a massive attack aided by the Eighteenth and Twenty-Eighth Infantry Regiment along with some French “water carriers”. The entire last month was preparation for this carefully planned attack. We were the devil this time.

First, it was our turn to launch a rolling artillery barrage at the enemy. It was a rhythmic song that repeated every two minutes. I sprinted with Dave and Reklaw, following the French flamethrower teams. We were running on an exposed field instead of under the safe cover of trenches, and a stray bullet from a machine gun can grant death in an instant.

God, the attack was so easy, and killing those overwhelmed Germans was not hard. With the tanks rolling in front of the panicking machine gunner, I climbed to the flanks and shot several machine gunners with my rifle, and I killed any Germans who were close to me with my Trench Gun. These weapons were terrifyingly effective, even when we were supposed to be disadvantaged by rushing uphill.

Who was the enemy? I remember the French flamethrower team incinerated everyone in a house, regardless of who was in that house. I saw a soldier execute a German cook woman with his bayonet instead of taking her prisoner. She was a defenseless woman, and she is now dead. She is not even buried; she is just one more corpse tossed into a pile. I also saw Reklaw defending a powerless child from a “patriotic” soldier with flames in his eyes and a gun in his hand. Reklaw was yelling, saying how killing a child is wrong, for there is no need to add one more death to the thousands already dead. I do not know why there was a child there, or even if that child is still alive, because the next second, the Germans counterattacked.

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Did I grow numb to the killing, or was I numb to the killing in the first place? Was I awake, or was I dreaming? For three days, I kept shooting against the Germans who tried to take this town. I did not know if I slept during those three days or if I was lucid the entire time. I remember that there was a small attack, followed by artillery thunder. There were a total of six assaults, I think, and we succeeded in defending this town. How am I still alive amidst those shrinks and whines of the shelling that periodically come like rain? We expanded the frontline about a mile, and apparently, Matthew B. Juan, an Indian from America, was killed here. I did not even know we had an Indian among us. I distinctly remember those Germans pulling out the gas again. Even Major Robert McCormick was evacuated due to poison gas and sinus. We were prepared; every American had a gas mask on. We took about two or three hundred German prisoners of war after we defended the stronghold.

I think around the third German assault, I lost contact with Reklaw. I do not know where he is. Maybe he is dead. He was marked “Missing in Action” and that was it. No one, neither I nor Dave, was searching for his trail, dead body, or information on whether he is still alive or not.

Now that I am more awake, I can see our hastily set up barbed wires and shallow trenches on one side of the town, if this place can even be called a “town” anymore. The least damaged building I can see has a big hole in the roof. Other buildings are rubbles, and there might be a few German corpses buried under there, considering the smell of carnage, which I recognize, is coming from those rubbles.

I am going to be moved to Paris to defend that big city while the rest of the army and the Second Infantry Division march through Belleau Wood. If nothing changes, I think I am going to be stationed in Paris for the rest of the War. Apparently, Paris had been attacked three times already……