The lingering scars of war

Judge Leo Ryan’s commentary about his grandfather’s WWI service in the Meuse-Argonne brought to mind my Great-Uncle Ferd, who entered service from the National Guard as a bugler and was in the same theater from June 1918 to the end of the battle, finally being honorably discharged in May1919.

I recall Great-Uncle Ferd as he died when I was 6 years old. He was an alcoholic who never married but was kind and loved his older brother, my grandfather, and his nieces and nephews. One of those nephews, my dad’s younger brother who served in World War II, and was in the Battle of the Bulge, clarified for me that being a bugler in The Great War was not about sounding reveille in camp. Uncle Ferd would have been one of the first in any charge from trenches, sounding the military calls (orders) for the troops. That explained a lot to me about why our friendly Uncle Ferd was a lonely man in actuality.

Finally, his older brother, my grandfather, lived on Myrtle Place, 7th Precinct, Baltimore City, according to his World War I draft registration. The name was later changed to Noble Street.