Veterans Day commemorates all those who served our country
during wartime. In my family there was Dad, who fought in World War
II, and my husband Dick, a Vietnam veteran. And then there was my
grandfather, Elmer Chesbro, MD, who for five weeks was an Army
private in World War I.
Veterans Day commemorates all those who served our country during wartime. In my family there was Dad, who fought in World War II, and my husband Dick, a Vietnam veteran. And then there was my grandfather, Elmer Chesbro, MD, who for five weeks was an Army private in World War I.
Mom always said it was too bad cassette tape recorders didn’t come along sooner. Every year following Thanksgiving dinner, the family would sit around the dining table reminiscing. Before long, Grandpa would get that far-off look in his eyes and we’d be in for his annual account of how he served his country during the Great War.
In 1954, when Dad purchased the family’s first tape recorder, it was hard to drag out and actually expect anyone to speak into it. The early edition looked like an overnight Samsonite case. Beneath the removable top, two sizable tape reels slowly wound while the cigarette-pack size microphone was held out. You were expected to emote without restraint, but it was simpler to just stare, mesmerized at the moving tapes, as one slowly emptied and the other one fattened.
By the time easy microcassettes came along, Grandpa had passed away, along with many tales of life in Gilroy’s good old days – and the annual retelling of his World War I experience.
Even though it was only for five weeks, Grandpa treasured his Army stint and was proud to call himself a veteran. Among the life associations he held most dear were the years he volunteered as the local National Guard physician and his active participation in the Gilroy post of the American Legion. Although his service time was brief, Grandpa felt defending our country was a lifetime commitment. He always supported rights and benefits for America’s veterans.
It wasn’t as though he hadn’t wanted to serve longer on active duty: he was disallowed. A 1916 graduate of the University of California School of Medicine, Grandpa had completed his residency at San Francisco General Hospital, and the next year had married Grandma, a nurse at Children’s Hospital. Like others of his generation just out of college at the threshold of the First World War, he, too, wanted to head Over There, and go fight the Huns in Europe.
On Aug. 13, 1918, he enlisted in the Army, entering as a private. Soon he was put aboard a troop train headed for Motor #14 Medical Department at Camp Greenleaf, Ga. It wasn’t long before Grandpa’s little secret was found out.
During medical school, he had fallen victim to a degenerative eye disorder. Had it not been for the kindness of a classmate, he probably would have dropped out of his studies altogether. But night after night, while Grandpa sat under orders to rest his eyes, his dear friend, Bartholomew Gattuccio of San Jose, read their text lessons aloud as the two studied together. Although the disorder slowed and halted, Grandpa’s eyesight was rendered too poor to qualify him for military duty.
For awhile, he got around this, including during his initial enlistment physical, by memorizing all the available eye charts. But once at camp an examining physician noticed Grandpa’s constant squinting when he made out charts and did paperwork. With every eye chart test, he’d always sail through. On a hunch, the doctor placed a new chart in the holder and asked him for a fresh readout. Unable to discern the fuzzy characters, Grandpa failed. He was informed that he would be sent, not Over There, but back home to Gilroy.
When he was honorably discharged on Sept. 24, 1918, reasons given on his papers stated “choric retinitis, chronic, macular region, bilateral.” In other words, he couldn’t see well in either eye and his vision wasn’t going to improve. His discharge papers read: Horsemanship: none; Battles, engagements, skirmishes, expeditions: none; wounds received in service: none. But additional comments note: Knowledge of any vocation: Physician; Character: excellent. And under remarks, “Service honest and faithful.”
Ironically, for all the Army’s haste to discharge him, Gramp wasn’t sent back to California right away. An epidemic of measles and influenza was sweeping through, laying low the troops at Camp Greenleaf. In need of extra help, authorities managed to “lose” his discharge papers long enough to enable him to remain a few extra weeks, assisting the overburdened medical staff with sick men lined up in cots in the camp hospital.
In the end, Grandpa’s brief service time wasn’t entirely without its perks. He was given mustering out pay of $119.27 on Oct. 17, 1918 at Camp Forrest, Ga., before being put back on the train. The following April, by an Act of Congress to further benefit veterans, he received an additional $60 payment.
William Wordsworth once wrote that “Small service is true service while
it lasts.” In 1920, based on his five weeks in the military, Grandpa applied for, and was accorded, a World War I Victory Medal. It proved that he, too, had served his nation in time of need. He kept it all his life, in its velvet-lined presentation box.
It’s just too bad we never recorded his voice on tape, so we could hear him retelling the story himself. Especially on Veterans Day.
Elizabeth Barratt can be reached via email at:
da***@ch**********.com
