To the Last Man - Jeff Shaara [7]
ROSCOE TEMPLE
Born 1898, near the thriving farm community of Monticello, in northern Florida. His father dies when he is an infant, and he has no recollection of the man. He is raised by a stern mother and an affectionate grandfather. The family farms the land, and his mother’s unwillingness to remarry puts her squarely in what is typically a man’s role as the overseer of a difficult life. Temple observes his mother’s love for her land, but more, he learns to appreciate all that nature has provided them. From an early age, he follows his grandfather through the winding paths that carry him deep into woods and swamplands, all the places that attract the imagination of a boy.
Temple, a voracious consumer of books, reads as many novels and histories as can be found in his rural community, and travels to the closest larger town, Tallahassee, to find more. He focuses on a study of the Civil War, inspired mainly by his grandfather’s stories of life as a Confederate soldier. But Temple seeks more than fantasy, and he begins to wonder about a career in the military. With tales of the Spanish-American War flowing across the land, and with the ebullient Teddy Roosevelt inspiring the nation to think of America as a place that gives birth to men of action, Temple’s fantasies jell into ambition. The spring after the outbreak of the war in Europe, he graduates from the rural high school, with a total of three classmates. He counts the days until his eighteenth birthday, and though he has spoken of little else than becoming a soldier, his mother is stunned when he announces that he intends to join the Marine Corps. Despite the needs of the farm, she will not stand in the way of her only child’s dream, and in 1917, he travels to Quantico, Virginia. Though the country seems twisted into turmoil and disagreement about the meaning of the war, whether or not the nation should imperil its youth in a foreign conflict, Temple nurtures the dream, and by the end of 1917, he is a Marine.
RAOUL LUFBERY
Born 1885, in Clermont-Ferrand, France, the youngest son of an American chemist. His mother dies before Lufbery is a year old, and when his father remarries and returns to America, Lufbery and his brothers remain in France in the care of relatives.
Lufbery grows up an independent and undisciplined young man and leaves France at age nineteen. Having no notion of what he wants to do with his life, he begins to travel. He finds his way to North Africa, Germany, Turkey, among many other stops, and survives by accepting any work he can find. In 1906, he and an older brother sail for New York, hoping to visit his father, who lives in Wallingford, Connecticut. But unknown to either of them, the elder Lufbery happens to leave New York by ship the same week his sons arrive. Lufbery will never see his father again. For two years he labors at a silver factory in Connecticut. In 1908, he begins another search for some kind of future, and he travels first to Cuba, then to New Orleans, and on to San Francisco, again working any odd jobs he can find.
He enlists in the army and serves in the Philippines under Pershing, where he pursues the paperwork required to become a naturalized American citizen. When his enlistment expires, Lufbery leaves the army and begins to travel again, sailing to Japan, China, and then to India.
In 1912, in Calcutta, he meets Frenchman Marc Pourpe, who is an accomplished and celebrated