DEAR HOMEFOLKS A Doughboy’s Letters and Diaries

by Roy Evans Thompson

(an American soldier from 1917 to 1920, World War I)

Compiled by Dale Thompson, his son

paperback / $20.00 / ISBN-13: 978-1-58790-154-6 / 206 pages / 5.5” x 8.5”

Military History / World War I / Medicine

ABOUT THE BOOK

Roy Thompson was one of the more than 3.5 million Americans who served in France during World War I. Like many of the soldiers who left their everyday lives and traveled overseas with the Army, he was changed by those Army experiences. Dear Homefolks is his story, told through the letters and the diaries, transcribed and framed with historical information that lets the modern reader make sense of what he had to say about his experiences.

Roy’s story is not a story of generals and grand strategies, nor of the soldier-hero, nor even of a man serving in the front lines. Ninety percent of the American Expeditionary Force in France served behind the lines, supporting those who moved the Army forward and tipped the balance for the Allied victory in November of 1918.

Roy joined an army undergoing unprecedented growth. To the credit of the screening process his teamwork and mechanical skills were identified and he was assigned a position as an auto mechanic.  This led to an assignment that served the needs of the Army and permitted him to grow into a very different man from the one he would have been had not war intervened.

In January 1919, while still in France, Roy was involved in a railway accident, losing his right foot. From that point the letters shift to his experiences within the military medical system.  Seven hospitals later he was discharged from the Army, 13 months after the accident, equipped with an artificial foot and a burning desire for more education. The letters and diary entries Roy wrote while in the Army provide a ground-level record of what it was like to be in the Army during the Great War.