To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [392]
Throughout the war, the elder Pershing settles into a fitful old age, lives in a men’s club in Washington, follows news of the war as best as his failing faculties will allow. On July 15, 1948, Pershing dies at Walter Reed Army Hospital. He is eighty-eight. President Truman orders that Pershing’s body lie in state in the rotunda of the Capitol, and after an extraordinary funeral procession of old soldiers and admirers, he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
Thus passed a man—a remarkable figure in American military tradition . . . one of our country’s greatest soldiers every hour
of his military life. No other could have taken his place
or carried out his assignment.
—ARCH WHITEHOUSE, historian
ROSCOE TEMPLE
He returns with his mother to the farm in north Florida, assumes his role as the man of the house, and of the farm. In 1922, he marries Ruthann Culp, a woman he has known all his life. They have one son. Though Temple makes every effort to find peace in the quiet surroundings of the rural landscape, the war is never far from his thoughts, and when his mother dies in 1928, he leaves the farm in the hands of tenants and moves to Atlanta. He attempts to find work as a teacher at a small military school, but he is plagued by the incessant curiosity of youth, and instead of teaching, he becomes obsessed with turning his students toward the future instead of the past. It is not a realistic solution, and more than ever, Temple is unable to escape the haunting memories of his experiences in France. In 1930, while eating dinner with a group of friends, he reacts to the sound of an airplane by suddenly jumping through an open window; he can never tolerate a Fourth of July fireworks celebration.
His health begins to deteriorate, and, diagnosed with a heart ailment, he returns to Monticello and the farm. But the Great Depression destroys the prospects of many small farmers, and Temple is barely able to provide for his family from the meager yields of his land. In 1938, he attends a twentieth-anniversary reunion of the Second Division, reunites with Brian Murphy, who offers him an opportunity to join a tractor manufacturing company in Chicago. Temple accepts, plans an abrupt change in his life, but Ruthann will not leave her family behind in Florida. Unable to convince her, a distraught Temple files for divorce, but before the marriage is ended, he dies suddenly of a heart attack in June 1939. He is forty-one. In 1943, his son, Mark, is killed in North Africa, serving under General George Patton.
THE LEGACY OF THE RED BARON
There is immediate controversy as to who is responsible for Richthofen’s death. The Camel that pursued him is piloted by Canadian Captain Roy Brown, who insists to his dying day that it was his guns that sent the Fokker down. On the ground, the Australians are as vigorous in their claims, several machine-gunners stating officially that they observed the effects of their fire on the red triplane and its pilot. From the nature of Richthofen’s wounds, which are from the side and not behind, the verdict points to the Australians.
Upon confirmation of Richthofen’s death, the Air Service names a new commander to JG-1, a young captain named Hermann Goering. But unlike Goering, who later commands Hitler’s Luftwaffe, the legacy of Richthofen will suffer none of the stain associated with the rise of the Nazis. Even those who place such harsh judgment on the brutal German militarism that gave rise to the horrors of World War I cannot legitimately diminish the accomplishments of their most accomplished pilot. In death, as in life, Richthofen’s name is revered in Germany like no other.
On April 22, 1918, Richthofen is buried by the British in a massive military graveyard in Fricourt, France. In 1925, after considerable petitioning by his family, Richthofen’s body is moved to Invaliden Cemetery in Berlin, where he is reburied in a ceremony that is one of the largest of its kind in German history. The first man who tosses dirt on the casket is the aged German commander,