Thanks to a tip from reader Raymond, here’s another World War I diary story. What a treasure for a family to have.
“The old cloth-covered book hardly shows its age — at 100, it betrays only the most modest of frayed edges. But to the family of the 24-year-old soldier who recorded history with a pencil as he marched across France, the little red volume is a priceless heirloom.
Because on its small lined pages, Joe Rodier, dead now a long time, lives again.”
Joe Rodier was a 24-year-old Massachusetts soldier who served in the US Army during World War I, and recorded his experiences in a journal and letters home.
Read more: A Worcester soldier’s diary brings WWI home – The Boston Globe
These are so cool. I remember reading in the Tampa paper several years ago about a diary written by a WWII soldier about his time in the Pacific theater. I think it might have been Iwo Jima. His family found it in the attic (I think) after his death. It detailed a miserable time on the island. He had malaria twice. They hated their officer and were pondering his death. All sorts of interesting details.