“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

My cousin Bruce recently sat down with Uncle Jesse, Ben’s last surviving child, to refresh their memories, to tell the old war stories again, second-hand now that the main character is no longer with us. The quote above stuck with Jesse and his twin brother, Wesley, because their father often recited it.

For the officers and non-commissioned officers in charge, military training is an exercise in organization. Equipment must be requisitioned and delivered to the training field; trainees must be housed, clothed, and fed three times a day; they have to be moved to and from the training site. Actual training takes place only a few hours per day.

For the soldier, military training is an exercise in patience. But while a soldier waits, the devil called boredom is his companion, and moral suffers. Busy work is a common solution.

Camp Gordon in Chamblee, northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, was one of 32 military training camps that sprang up near America’s large cities in 1917. As part of his War Preparedness Movement developed in 1914 while he was Army Chief of Staff, General Leonard Wood called for training camps to be built near cities with rail access and a large water supply.

Soon after the declaration of war, the camps were under construction as trainees were moving in. All those clapboard buildings needed painting. As did the stones that marked the borders of roads and walkways.

During the first days of training in that hot, humid Georgia July of 1918, Private Potts and his comrades would have learned military courtesy and drill and ceremony, instilling the high degree of discipline required of a soldier. Later, they learned the use of arms. Most American boys of the era were familiar with hunting rifles, which is fortunate since, due to lack of equipment, they often trained with wooden stakes.

The latter part of the six-week training period would have included two divergent forms of combat tactics: maneuver and trench warfare. In the early days of the Great War, the Allies employed maneuver warfare to combat the invading German army, pushing it back or recoiling before its advance. However, improved technology, notably more accurate, mobile artillery and the machine gun, made the battlefield a more lethal environment. The Allies dug in to secure their gains or prevent further losses.

Trench warfare led to what General John J. Pershing, Commander of the American Expeditionary Forces, called “abnormal stabilized warfare.” Pershing believed the stalemate in Europe was the logical outcome of the defensive tactics that define trench warfare.

Pershing advocated, not formations facing-off in open fields as in battles of the American Civil War, but large-unit maneuver tactics, where the infantry advances through opposing lines, pushing the enemy off the field. At the same time, Pershing acknowledged the role of trench warfare and allowed for its basic instruction in the training program.

Abandoned in 1921, the Camp Gordon site became a naval air station during World War II. Today, a plaque among the hangars of Dekalb Peachtree Airport marks the site of the World War I training camp.

Almost 70 years later, while the times of painting clapboard buildings and border stones were long passed, during my own Army training in 1987, my comrades and I laughed at the same aphorism:

“If it moves, salute it. If it doesn’t move, paint it!”

“Training of the American Soldier During World War I and World War II,” Roger K. Spickelmier, MAJ, USA, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 1987.

World War I Military Camps, New Georgia Encyclopedia

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’ journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Military Induction and Entrainment

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever…”

Next date:

August 24—Embarkation, the Tunisian, and the Bridge of Ships

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear that I will support the constitution of the United States.”

The words feel like strangers in the mouth, being, at the same time, repeated after a man in uniform and of such moral import.

The American flag on his right, the Tennessee Tristar, left, the army officer stands before a group of young men. They are farmers, teachers, laborers, and railroad men. All dressed in their best clothes, they’re aligned in loose ranks. A small suitcase or a simple bag, containing a change of clothes and a shaving kit, sits on the floor to each man’s left. Their right hands are raised, palms out.

The officer continues: “I, state your name…”

“I, Benjamin Franklin Potts, do solemnly swear to bear true allegiance to the United States of America, and to serve them honestly and faithfully, against all their enemies or opposers whatsoever, and to observe and obey the orders of the President of the United States of America, and the orders of the officers appointed over me.”

June 27, 1918, one hundred years ago today, my great grandfather spoke these words, right hand raised, at the Houston County Court House in Erin, Tennessee, and so became a private in the U.S. Army.

The two oaths, taken by all commissioned and noncommissioned officers and privates, were defined by the First United States Congress in 1789. The oath for officers changed over the years, but the oaths for enlisted men stayed the same until the mid-20th century.

Following the brief ceremony, Private Potts was escorted onto a train with several dozen other draftees. On boarding, each man was given two box lunches, supplied by the Red Cross Society of Erin, that would be his dinner and supper. The train pulled out for Camp Gordon in Chamblee, Georgia, where they would undergo six weeks of military training.

Three months from that day, my great grandfather would be fighting in France.

Form 1029, Provost Marshal General Office, showing Benjamin Franklin Potts (12th entry) was inducted and entrained for Camp Gordon June 27, 1918, and arrived two days later

Two of Ben’s three brothers were also drafted for the war. Nine months prior, Roy Albert, two years Ben’s senior, took the same train to Camp Gordon. The youngest, Clyde Brake, would leave for Camp Wadsworth near Spartanburg, South Carolina, in September 1918. Only the eldest, William Rufus, was excluded from the draft, being married with two young children at the time.

A Very Muddy Place

My great grandfather, like many veterans, didn’t talk much about his wartime experience. His family has only his discharge paper and a few anecdotes.

One hundred years later, I’ve discovered a few documents that bear his name. From draft registration to discharge, I’m following the paper trail of B. F. Potts’ journey to the battlefields of the Great War in France and back home again.

Previous articles:

The Butte of Vauquois

“Well, Daddy, what did you think about France?”
“It's a very muddy place.”

Benjamin Franklin Potts Registers for the Draft

As the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service.

Next article:

Army Training at Camp Gordon

June 5, 1917, the Great War thundered across the fields of northern France. Earlier in the spring, a large-scale attack, called the Nivelle Offensive, failed with heavy casualties, resulting in a series of mutinies and mass desertions in the French army. In the Argonne Forest, a battle of mine-and-countermine, now two years in, was riddling the Butte of Vauquois with tunnels and craters.

In the United States, ten million American men, ages 21 to 30, signed their names to register to be drafted into military service. One of these was my great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Potts.

In April, following the discovery that Germany was negotiating with Mexico to join the war against its northern neighbor, the United States declared war on the German Empire. The Selective Service Act of 1917 was enacted in May. It authorized the conscription of men to raise an army, allowing certain exclusions. Among them, having a dependent parent, or a dependent sibling or child under 12 years old, were considered good reasons to be exempt from the draft.

In addition to this date, three other national registration days were held. One, on the same date a year later, to register men turned 21 during the year, followed by a second, August 24, for the same reason, then a third, on September 12, which broadened the eligibility age, from 18 to 45.

All four sons of Jack and Ellen Potts were of eligible ages. Benjamin Franklin, who was called “Bennie”* by his family, was accompanied that day by his brothers: William “Roofy”* Rufus, Roy Albert, and Clyde Brake.

*The nicknames are recorded in the 1910 census (image) when Benjamin was 16 years old and Rufus, 20.

According to his draft registration card, B. F. Potts was 22 years old, short in height, medium in build. He had gray eyes and dark brown hair. Born September 18, 1894, in Slayden, Tennessee, by 1917 he resided in nearby Tennessee Ridge. He laid and repaired track for the Lincoln & Nashville Railroad. He was Caucasian, unmarried, with no prior military experience and no good reasons not to get some.

Draft registration card, Benjamin Franklin Potts, June 5, 1917

At the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery,
east of the village of Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, France

On September 26 this year, we’ll mark the 100th anniversary of the assault on the Butte of Vauquois by the 35th Infantry Division of the American Expeditionary Forces.

My great grandfather, Private Benjamin Franklin Potts, fought there. Thankfully for me and my Potts family kin who came after, he survived. Many of his comrades in arms did not.