Hemingway Soldier's Home Analysis
"Soldier 's Home" is a short story by Ernest Hemingway written in 1925 as a part of his book of short stories, In Our Time (Meyer 152). The story talks about Corporal Harold Krebs, who, like Hemingway, volunteers for instead of being drafted into World War I. He volunteers for the Marines in 1917. A recruiting booklet for the Marines from that time lets us know what Harold Krebs might have read before volunteering. (History and Lore). The cover of the booklet is shown here. The story, "Soldier 's Home" provides clues about his military career without talking about the war itself. It is difficult to get to know about the real character of Krebs without knowing more about World War I than the story tells us. Once some of the blanks in the story
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are filled in, Krebs seems to be a person who was once an ordinary fraternity brother and college student who became very competent as a soldier under some of the worst conditions of World War I. He becomes a man under difficult circumstances, is highly honored and respected, has to recover from the war, but now that he is at home, he is treated like a boy who has to earn the right to be an adult. Hemingway keeps us thinking about Krebs being a solder by calling him by his last name in the story, just like soldiers are called in the military. The author makes him a Corporal, which makes us believe that he is smart and worthy of respect.
An idea of what a World War I Marine looked like is in a portrait by Samuel J. Woolf from the Marine Corps Art Collection (Scuttlebutt). Krebs is in some of the most important battles of the last two years of WWI. By using clues in the story, his Division, Battalion and war history can be figured out to understand what it is like between the time he leaves college and returns home. We know he volunteers in 1917, fights in the 2nd Division, 6th Marine Battalion and returns with his division from the Rhine River (152), gets back a year later than the town draftees (Hemingway 153), is in some battles of 1918 including "Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel, and in the Argonne" (153); knows "about the actualities of machine gunning" (153), sometimes meets other men who have really been soldiers and can talk about being "badly, sickenly, frightened all the time (153), learns in the army that he does "not need a girl"(154) even though he has a picture of himself and another colonel with two girls (153), thinks about France and Germany, did not want to leave Germany to come home, reads a book about the war and looks forward to reading more detailed books (155), realizes he is a good soldier and that his work as a soldier "made a difference" (155); and knows that his mother and sisters still think of him as a hero(153).
There is only one Marine Division from the Second Battalion that fits all the facts given by Hemingway. This is the Second Division which becomes a part of the 4th Brigade, American Expeditionary Force, is activated on July 11, 1917, sent to France from Philadelphia, and takes part in all the battles mentioned in the story, beginning with the defense of Paris. A soldier in this Brigade fights in trenches, uses rifles and machine guns and has sees a lot of dead and wounded. The Second Division attacks at Belleau Wood and one attack there is made across 600 yards of open ground under "intense artillery fire". After the battle is won, the French rename the woods the "Bois de la Brigade de Marine", in English the "Marine Brigade Woods" and give all the Marines a Croix de Guerre with Palm medal. The Soissons battle ends with 7000 soldiers killed and wounded and the Brigade gets a second Croix de Guerre medal with a Gilt Star. In the Saint Mihiel sector battle, the soldiers get another Croix de Guerre with Palm medal and a Fourrageur. The Champagne battle has 250,000 Allied dead and wounded, Argonne Forest has 117,000 casualties and 14,246 dead, and then the Marines cross the Rhine River and go on to occupy Germany. We know from "Soldier 's Home" that Krebs dates both French and German women and that he does not want to return from Germany. This would not be possible unless he is in areas in France that are free and areas of Germany that are under occupation. Also, we know that the Second Division doesn 't return from Germany until July 1919, that there is a Second Division parade in New York City to honor them, and that the soldiers are kept for a while in Virginia before the entire Division is deactivated for three years (Woolf).
Are there real people like the fictional character Krebs? One short history of a real colonel from the Second Division provides us with a very close example:
Cpl. ALPHEUS APPENHEIMER, USMC, Teamster, Headquarters Detachment
Alpheus Appenheimer, born outside Leoti, Kansas, 1893, during record blizzard in a sod dugout. ~ Enlisted in U.S. Marine Corps, Peoria, Illinois, April 27, 1917. ~ Trained Paris Island & Quantico. ~ Served with 6th Machine Gun Battalion, 4th Brigade, 2nd Division, AEF, as a teamster. ~ Served on the Verdun Front, Belleau Wood, Soissons, Marbache Sector, St. Mihiel, & Blanc Mont. ~ Promoted to Corporal, February 1918; Busted to Private, April 1918, for insolence to his Sergeant Major; Promoted to Corporal, June 1918. ~ Won Croix de Guerre & Silver Star Citation for repeatedly hauling ammunition & rations by wagon & mule team, by night, into front line trenches under heavy shellfire at Belleau Wood, June 3-11, 1918. ~ Won 2nd Croix de Guerre & 2nd Silver Star Citation for hauling ammunition by wagon & mule team six kilometers under heavy shellfire at Blanc Mont, 3 October 1918. ~ Wounded October 26, 1918, near Les Islettes, by shrapnel & mustard gas. Hospitalized from late October to late December at American Red Cross Hospital #38 in Doulon, France. ~ Rejoined battalion in Melsbach, Germany, January 1919. ~ Returned to United States early, due to hardship at home, March 1919. ~ Honorably discharged from Marine Corps, Quantico, June 9, 1919, with rank of Corporal. (Woolf)
Can Hemingway 's Krebs be a member of the 6th Machinegun Battalion? Perhaps. But is there a book soon after the war he can be reading in the passage stating:
It was a history and he was reading about all the engagements he had been in. It was the most interesting reading he had ever done. He wished there were more maps. He looked forward with a good feeling to reading all the really good histories when they would come our with god detail maps. Now he was really learning about the war. He had been a good soldier. That made a difference (Hemingway 155).
A history just like that really exists, WITH THE HELP OF GOD AND A FEW MARINES by Brigadier General A.W. Catlin, published by Doubleday, Page & Company in 1919. A description of the book on a Marine website advertises it as " Memoirs of the skipper of the 6th Marines of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Division, AEF. Illustrations, letters of individual Marines, and appendices, including all the Citations for Valor in Action, with full text, awarded to Marines of the 5th Regt, 6th Regt, and 6th Machine Gun Battalion at Belleau Wood" (Woolf).
Besides reading a history book and going to the Library on a regular basis, what is Krebs doing with his time now that he is back home?
He goes to dances, he walks around, he loves to play pool for hours, he practices his clarinet, he sleeps and he eats, and not much else. He does not date, because he doesn 't want to court or get into conflict from having to lie to girls (154). He doesn 't drive. He has never been allowed to drive the family car He watches women, called "girls" by Hemingway, but he never takes them out on a date. He finds the local girls good looking, more attractive than girls in France or Germany, but not the same as when you take them out since with French and German girls "you did not need to talk. It was simple and you were friends." He feels that girls might complicate his life, just when he is about to return to normal. He is avoiding any kind of strong emotions and/or conflicts. (154). The picture he has of another colonel with their dates isn 't interesting to the people in town. "Krebs and the corporal look too big for their uniforms. The German girls are not beautiful. The Rhine does not show in the picture" (153).
The townspeople do not care about Krebs or reality very much: they want to be sensationalized. When he talks about the war, he learns they won 't listen unless he lies a little. "His town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities. Krebs found that to be listened to at all he had to lie, and after he had done this …show more content…
twice he, too, had a reaction against the war and talking about it" (153). He feels that lying about his bravery denigrates his experiences:
All of the times that he had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else, now lost their cool, valuable quality and then were lost themselves (153).
He survives the worst battles of World War I to come home to people who think that the war is no longer a popular topic. Meanwhile, it takes him a long time to even talk about the war. When he shares about the Battle of Argonne forest, nobody is interested in hearing about real German machine gunners, only about myths of women tied to machine guns. (153)
At home, Krebs is still a hero to his mother and his sisters.
Hemingway leaves his father out. His father is the kind of person who before the war never let Krebs use the family car. His father was noncommittal" (153). That means that he commits to any opinions for instance he 's absent rather that present. He doesn 't tell Krebs directly about coming to his office. His father sends the message through his wife about offering Krebs to drive the car at night while it remains parked outside his office. During car offering, Krebs said, "I 'll bet you made him" (155). His younger sisters, especially his favorite sister Helen, love him. Helen thinks that she wants to marry him by saying, "Will you love me always" (156)? Then he gets asked by his sister to watch him play ball and then he says, "Maybe" (156). She then says, "If you loved me, you 'd want to come over and watch me play indoor" (156). Krebs is not stupid, when his mother tells him about the possibility he could use the car. It has to be pretty insulting for a corporal who has returned from the war and being able to use the car even before. The parental agenda for Krebs is to get a wife and get a job. His mother often comes when he is in bed and "asks him to tell her about the war, but her attention always wandered" (153). His mother said to
him:
"I 've worried about you so much Harold. I know the temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak the men are" (156).
She still seems to have no idea what he has been through and seems to worry about his sexual life: "I know what your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us about the Civil War and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all day long" (156). His mother also defames him by saying:
"Your father is worried too. He thinks you have lost your ambition, that you haven 't got a definite aim in life. Charley Simmons, who is about your age, has a good job and is going to be married. The boys are all settling down; they 're all determined to get somewhere; you can see that boys like Charley Simmons are on their way to being a credit to the community" (156).
It is obvious that his mother doesn 't respect him as an adult. The newspaper he reads with his breakfast isn 't even his. His mother says, "...please don 't muss up the paper. Your father can 't read his Star if it 's been mussed" (155).
He 's not respected for his accomplishments and his intelligence. The only thing he is allowed to do is to adjust to being a boy, who has to earn the right to be a man, instead of being the competent man he is. He figures out a way to accomplish this and to accomplish this, get away from pretending to get along with other people. To live without lies, he will move to "..Kansas City and get a job and she will feel all right about it" (157). To escape from being a boy, and start his new life, "he would not go down to his father 's office" (157). He still loves his family. He especially wants his sister to know he still loves her. Before he leaves, with saying, he goes "over to the schoolyard and watches his sister play indoor baseball" (157). He is making a decision to be treated like a man he already is and leaving his boyhood behind. It is similar to what St. Paul the Apostle said to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 13:11"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (Holy Bible).
Bibliography
Argonne: http://www.jcs-group.com/military/wars/ww1.html, http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/studentwork/sheridan/steese/WWIPics04.html
Belleau Wood. Leaders and Battles Database. HistoryShots, LLC. 2004
Champagne. Kileen Harker Heights Connection to the World. 24-Jul-1999
Dead at military cemeteries and missing listed on tablets: http://www.abmc.gov/abmc44.htm
Global Security Organization, "2d Engineering Battalion": http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/2eng.htm
Hanlon, Michael. Belleau Wood, Quick Facts. The Great War Society. 1998-2000.
Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldiers Home." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford Books, 1999. pp152-157
History and Lore of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion. Scuttlebutt and Small Chow. U.S. Marine Corps Historical Galleries: WWI. 2000.
The Holy Bible. Suthorized King James Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House. 1966
Ibid. "2d Battalion, 6th Marines", http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/usmc/2-6.htm
Official Website of 2d Battalion Marine Divisions: http://www.lejeune.usmc.mil/2dmardiv/
Meyers, Michael. "Ernest Hemingway." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford Books, 1999. 152
St. Mihiel:
Soissons:
Woolf, Samuel J. Cpl ALPHEUS APPENHEIMER, USMC Teamster, Headquarters Detachment. Scuttlebutt and Small Chow. U.S. Marine Corps Historical Galleries: WWI. 2000.
are filled in, Krebs seems to be a person who was once an ordinary fraternity brother and college student who became very competent as a soldier under some of the worst conditions of World War I. He becomes a man under difficult circumstances, is highly honored and respected, has to recover from the war, but now that he is at home, he is treated like a boy who has to earn the right to be an adult. Hemingway keeps us thinking about Krebs being a solder by calling him by his last name in the story, just like soldiers are called in the military. The author makes him a Corporal, which makes us believe that he is smart and worthy of respect.
An idea of what a World War I Marine looked like is in a portrait by Samuel J. Woolf from the Marine Corps Art Collection (Scuttlebutt). Krebs is in some of the most important battles of the last two years of WWI. By using clues in the story, his Division, Battalion and war history can be figured out to understand what it is like between the time he leaves college and returns home. We know he volunteers in 1917, fights in the 2nd Division, 6th Marine Battalion and returns with his division from the Rhine River (152), gets back a year later than the town draftees (Hemingway 153), is in some battles of 1918 including "Belleau Wood, Soissons, the Champagne, St. Mihiel, and in the Argonne" (153); knows "about the actualities of machine gunning" (153), sometimes meets other men who have really been soldiers and can talk about being "badly, sickenly, frightened all the time (153), learns in the army that he does "not need a girl"(154) even though he has a picture of himself and another colonel with two girls (153), thinks about France and Germany, did not want to leave Germany to come home, reads a book about the war and looks forward to reading more detailed books (155), realizes he is a good soldier and that his work as a soldier "made a difference" (155); and knows that his mother and sisters still think of him as a hero(153).
There is only one Marine Division from the Second Battalion that fits all the facts given by Hemingway. This is the Second Division which becomes a part of the 4th Brigade, American Expeditionary Force, is activated on July 11, 1917, sent to France from Philadelphia, and takes part in all the battles mentioned in the story, beginning with the defense of Paris. A soldier in this Brigade fights in trenches, uses rifles and machine guns and has sees a lot of dead and wounded. The Second Division attacks at Belleau Wood and one attack there is made across 600 yards of open ground under "intense artillery fire". After the battle is won, the French rename the woods the "Bois de la Brigade de Marine", in English the "Marine Brigade Woods" and give all the Marines a Croix de Guerre with Palm medal. The Soissons battle ends with 7000 soldiers killed and wounded and the Brigade gets a second Croix de Guerre medal with a Gilt Star. In the Saint Mihiel sector battle, the soldiers get another Croix de Guerre with Palm medal and a Fourrageur. The Champagne battle has 250,000 Allied dead and wounded, Argonne Forest has 117,000 casualties and 14,246 dead, and then the Marines cross the Rhine River and go on to occupy Germany. We know from "Soldier 's Home" that Krebs dates both French and German women and that he does not want to return from Germany. This would not be possible unless he is in areas in France that are free and areas of Germany that are under occupation. Also, we know that the Second Division doesn 't return from Germany until July 1919, that there is a Second Division parade in New York City to honor them, and that the soldiers are kept for a while in Virginia before the entire Division is deactivated for three years (Woolf).
Are there real people like the fictional character Krebs? One short history of a real colonel from the Second Division provides us with a very close example:
Cpl. ALPHEUS APPENHEIMER, USMC, Teamster, Headquarters Detachment
Alpheus Appenheimer, born outside Leoti, Kansas, 1893, during record blizzard in a sod dugout. ~ Enlisted in U.S. Marine Corps, Peoria, Illinois, April 27, 1917. ~ Trained Paris Island & Quantico. ~ Served with 6th Machine Gun Battalion, 4th Brigade, 2nd Division, AEF, as a teamster. ~ Served on the Verdun Front, Belleau Wood, Soissons, Marbache Sector, St. Mihiel, & Blanc Mont. ~ Promoted to Corporal, February 1918; Busted to Private, April 1918, for insolence to his Sergeant Major; Promoted to Corporal, June 1918. ~ Won Croix de Guerre & Silver Star Citation for repeatedly hauling ammunition & rations by wagon & mule team, by night, into front line trenches under heavy shellfire at Belleau Wood, June 3-11, 1918. ~ Won 2nd Croix de Guerre & 2nd Silver Star Citation for hauling ammunition by wagon & mule team six kilometers under heavy shellfire at Blanc Mont, 3 October 1918. ~ Wounded October 26, 1918, near Les Islettes, by shrapnel & mustard gas. Hospitalized from late October to late December at American Red Cross Hospital #38 in Doulon, France. ~ Rejoined battalion in Melsbach, Germany, January 1919. ~ Returned to United States early, due to hardship at home, March 1919. ~ Honorably discharged from Marine Corps, Quantico, June 9, 1919, with rank of Corporal. (Woolf)
Can Hemingway 's Krebs be a member of the 6th Machinegun Battalion? Perhaps. But is there a book soon after the war he can be reading in the passage stating:
It was a history and he was reading about all the engagements he had been in. It was the most interesting reading he had ever done. He wished there were more maps. He looked forward with a good feeling to reading all the really good histories when they would come our with god detail maps. Now he was really learning about the war. He had been a good soldier. That made a difference (Hemingway 155).
A history just like that really exists, WITH THE HELP OF GOD AND A FEW MARINES by Brigadier General A.W. Catlin, published by Doubleday, Page & Company in 1919. A description of the book on a Marine website advertises it as " Memoirs of the skipper of the 6th Marines of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Division, AEF. Illustrations, letters of individual Marines, and appendices, including all the Citations for Valor in Action, with full text, awarded to Marines of the 5th Regt, 6th Regt, and 6th Machine Gun Battalion at Belleau Wood" (Woolf).
Besides reading a history book and going to the Library on a regular basis, what is Krebs doing with his time now that he is back home?
He goes to dances, he walks around, he loves to play pool for hours, he practices his clarinet, he sleeps and he eats, and not much else. He does not date, because he doesn 't want to court or get into conflict from having to lie to girls (154). He doesn 't drive. He has never been allowed to drive the family car He watches women, called "girls" by Hemingway, but he never takes them out on a date. He finds the local girls good looking, more attractive than girls in France or Germany, but not the same as when you take them out since with French and German girls "you did not need to talk. It was simple and you were friends." He feels that girls might complicate his life, just when he is about to return to normal. He is avoiding any kind of strong emotions and/or conflicts. (154). The picture he has of another colonel with their dates isn 't interesting to the people in town. "Krebs and the corporal look too big for their uniforms. The German girls are not beautiful. The Rhine does not show in the picture" (153).
The townspeople do not care about Krebs or reality very much: they want to be sensationalized. When he talks about the war, he learns they won 't listen unless he lies a little. "His town had heard too many atrocity stories to be thrilled by actualities. Krebs found that to be listened to at all he had to lie, and after he had done this …show more content…
twice he, too, had a reaction against the war and talking about it" (153). He feels that lying about his bravery denigrates his experiences:
All of the times that he had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else, now lost their cool, valuable quality and then were lost themselves (153).
He survives the worst battles of World War I to come home to people who think that the war is no longer a popular topic. Meanwhile, it takes him a long time to even talk about the war. When he shares about the Battle of Argonne forest, nobody is interested in hearing about real German machine gunners, only about myths of women tied to machine guns. (153)
At home, Krebs is still a hero to his mother and his sisters.
Hemingway leaves his father out. His father is the kind of person who before the war never let Krebs use the family car. His father was noncommittal" (153). That means that he commits to any opinions for instance he 's absent rather that present. He doesn 't tell Krebs directly about coming to his office. His father sends the message through his wife about offering Krebs to drive the car at night while it remains parked outside his office. During car offering, Krebs said, "I 'll bet you made him" (155). His younger sisters, especially his favorite sister Helen, love him. Helen thinks that she wants to marry him by saying, "Will you love me always" (156)? Then he gets asked by his sister to watch him play ball and then he says, "Maybe" (156). She then says, "If you loved me, you 'd want to come over and watch me play indoor" (156). Krebs is not stupid, when his mother tells him about the possibility he could use the car. It has to be pretty insulting for a corporal who has returned from the war and being able to use the car even before. The parental agenda for Krebs is to get a wife and get a job. His mother often comes when he is in bed and "asks him to tell her about the war, but her attention always wandered" (153). His mother said to
him:
"I 've worried about you so much Harold. I know the temptations you must have been exposed to. I know how weak the men are" (156).
She still seems to have no idea what he has been through and seems to worry about his sexual life: "I know what your own dear grandfather, my own father, told us about the Civil War and I have prayed for you. I pray for you all day long" (156). His mother also defames him by saying:
"Your father is worried too. He thinks you have lost your ambition, that you haven 't got a definite aim in life. Charley Simmons, who is about your age, has a good job and is going to be married. The boys are all settling down; they 're all determined to get somewhere; you can see that boys like Charley Simmons are on their way to being a credit to the community" (156).
It is obvious that his mother doesn 't respect him as an adult. The newspaper he reads with his breakfast isn 't even his. His mother says, "...please don 't muss up the paper. Your father can 't read his Star if it 's been mussed" (155).
He 's not respected for his accomplishments and his intelligence. The only thing he is allowed to do is to adjust to being a boy, who has to earn the right to be a man, instead of being the competent man he is. He figures out a way to accomplish this and to accomplish this, get away from pretending to get along with other people. To live without lies, he will move to "..Kansas City and get a job and she will feel all right about it" (157). To escape from being a boy, and start his new life, "he would not go down to his father 's office" (157). He still loves his family. He especially wants his sister to know he still loves her. Before he leaves, with saying, he goes "over to the schoolyard and watches his sister play indoor baseball" (157). He is making a decision to be treated like a man he already is and leaving his boyhood behind. It is similar to what St. Paul the Apostle said to the Corinthians in I Corinthians 13:11"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things" (Holy Bible).
Bibliography
Argonne: http://www.jcs-group.com/military/wars/ww1.html, http://chronicles.dickinson.edu/studentwork/sheridan/steese/WWIPics04.html
Belleau Wood. Leaders and Battles Database. HistoryShots, LLC. 2004
Champagne. Kileen Harker Heights Connection to the World. 24-Jul-1999
Dead at military cemeteries and missing listed on tablets: http://www.abmc.gov/abmc44.htm
Global Security Organization, "2d Engineering Battalion": http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/army/2eng.htm
Hanlon, Michael. Belleau Wood, Quick Facts. The Great War Society. 1998-2000.
Hemingway, Ernest. "Soldiers Home." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford Books, 1999. pp152-157
History and Lore of the 6th Machine Gun Battalion. Scuttlebutt and Small Chow. U.S. Marine Corps Historical Galleries: WWI. 2000.
The Holy Bible. Suthorized King James Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House. 1966
Ibid. "2d Battalion, 6th Marines", http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/usmc/2-6.htm
Official Website of 2d Battalion Marine Divisions: http://www.lejeune.usmc.mil/2dmardiv/
Meyers, Michael. "Ernest Hemingway." The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford Books, 1999. 152
St. Mihiel:
Soissons:
Woolf, Samuel J. Cpl ALPHEUS APPENHEIMER, USMC Teamster, Headquarters Detachment. Scuttlebutt and Small Chow. U.S. Marine Corps Historical Galleries: WWI. 2000.