"At last General Pershing finished his speech and climbed down from his platform. He came straight toward Lieutenant Hays. I kept my eyes glued to the front, but I knew what he was doing. He stopped before the lieutenant, plopped his heels, and did something with his hands. I heard him speak to the lieutenant. Then he was standing in front of me. He saluted, and I almost snapped my right arm off in answering. But I did it automatically. My head had about quit functioning. The general stepped up close to me, did something with the front of my blouse- and a pin went straight through the blouse into the flesh on my chest! He shook hands with me and congratulated me, and said something about a "fellow Missourian." Then he knocked his heels together, gave a low, snappy salute, sidestepped to the right, and began decorating the next fellow."
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Military leaders from the United StatesEpiscopalians from the United StatesLawyers from the United StatesMemoirists from the United StatesPeople from Missouri
Original Language: English
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Sources
John L. Barkley, Scarlet Fields (1930), p. 220
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_J._Pershing
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John J. Pershing
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