Roy Powell says he sympathizes with soldiers in Saudi Arabia whose mouths turn to sawdust at the thought of hunkering down on a battlefield, wondering if the claustrophobic gas mask pulled down on their faces will protect them from poison gas.
That was Powell`s life 74 years ago as a World War I doughboy in France.
Today, a frail Powell, 94, sits in a wheelchair at a state-run home for veterans who served their country during time of war, following news of the latest U.S. conflict on television.
He is one of a dwindling number of World War I veterans in Illinois who can make comparisons between the ”War to End All Wars” and the one President Bush has vowed will create ”a new world order.”
At the Illinois Veterans` Home in Manteno, about 50 miles south of Chicago, there are only 17 World War I vets left. Most are only dimly aware of the war in the Persian Gulf.
But not Powell, a former Wicker Park resident, who said he joined the Army in 1917, after leaving home for a reason that sounds all too familiar today.
”You see, we had gangs in those days too,” he said. ”I got involved with the Irish group called the McIrney Gang. One day I refused to beat a fellow up; I thought I better get out of town before I ran into those boys again.”
Powell not only is following events in the Persian Gulf, but he also compares the two wars, down to tactics and home front morale.
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Some things never change, he noted.
”You know, as long as there are men on earth, there are going to be wars,” he said.
Powell was stationed with the 75th Division and fought in the miles of muddy trenches between the Meuse and Moselle Rivers.
Like the soldiers in Saudi Arabia, he fought with a gas mask at his side. ”They (the Germans) started using gas at the end of the war-when they knew they couldn`t win,” he said.
”Our masks were not easy to wear. You had to put them on right; they may be better now. In our day, they had to be made practically overnight.”
Another similarity between the two wars is war protest, he continued. It bothered him then, and it bothers him now.
”I saw on TV a group of protesters who couldn`t even speak English,” he said. ”We had them in World War I too. We even had a song about them that we sang overseas called, `If You Don`t Like the Uncle Sammy.` ”
Powell`s own sons and grandsons have not been among the antiwar crowd. In fact, Powell has seen his three sons and a grandson off to World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam. His youngest son died of a stomach infection during World War II.
Casmir Kott, 93, another World War I vet and a former Sears, Roebuck and Co. employee in Chicago, recalled that he was so anxious to go to war-”my brother who was over there wrote me about the women in France”-that he tried to enlist twice.
”I was turned down each time because I was too young and too small,” he recalled. ”Finally, a politician got me in.”
Powell noted one major difference in the type of war fought then and now. ”World War I was more of a personal conflict,” he said. ”We went from trench to trench and man to man. If we advanced even 50 yards in one day, it was considered good.
”Now they don`t even have to see the enemy. They can fire from 50 miles away.”
Memories remain sharp for some of the other World War I veterans at the home, including John Weber, 96, a former CTA motorman, who was drafted in 1917.
”What do I remember about the trenches?” he asked. ”The rats and the mud. And how you could stay low and hidden-if you`d stick your head up, you`d get it knocked off.