The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
VOLUME 139 NO. 23
FRIDAY, November 11, 2011
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
11/11/18: Peace overjoys a weary Oxford
By Kevin Kuethe
For The Miami Student
As dawn broke across Oxford and the placid Miami University campus on Nov. 11, 1918, every bell, whistle, and horn told the joyous news: The Great War—the First World War—had ended in an Armistice with Germany. Students and locals alike jammed Hall Auditorium at 9 a. m. to hear the details. The Miami Student of the day reported that after the assembly, “the whole student body paraded the town, accompanied by
the Oxford public school as a body, the Oxford College women, and also the Western women. A band was hastily formed by students, and some of the best and most peppy music of the year was heard. Great American flags were carried by men, women, and children, and a general dance to the music of the fraternity pianos was participated in by all on High Street.” As one youthful participant later described, “the boys were coming home and everyone was so grateful.” The news was sudden and
unexpected. Rumors of peace had come and gone for a year and a half. When war was first declared in April 1917, Miami’s President, Raymond H. Hughes had warned of a struggle that could last for years— possibly a decade. Miami did not fully enter a wartime footing until classes resumed in September, 1917. Already, many young male students joined legions of alumni in the armed forces. By the end of hostilities, nearly 1,000 Miami graduates and students—including 10 women—officially enlisted
CONTRIBUTED BY MIAMI UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES
Members of Western College for Women’s Red Cross chapter prepare surgical gauze packages for soldiers during World War I.
Truth - remembrance - youth: of these You brood in your ancient reveries; In the flow of universal tides This is the knowledge that keeps you vernal;-Only beauty abides; Youth is eternal.
-- Percy Mackaye, 1923; inscribed on Upham Hall
By sam kay
editor in chief
Oxford, Ohio is a place that has been full of youth since 1826. While the buildings age and students graduate and move on, Miami University is constantly replenished with new waves of college-aged men and women. In 1923, Percy Mackaye, Miami’s poet in residence, observed this and postulated that Miami’s grand trees, ancient yet vernal, are constantly rejuvenated by the eternal procession of beauty and youth through Oxford. Youth is part of what makes college a singular and wonderful experience. Like college, the military is also an institution peopled mostly by the young. Too often, we think of veterans as wrinkled faces beneath oversized ballcaps. It is easy to forget that
throughout history and to this day, most people who serve and die in our nation’s wars are our age. Wars are fought by the young, so it is a fitting task for a student newspaper to recognize the service that young men and women have rendered for our country. This Veterans Day, The Miami Student has undertaken the task of partially chronicling the service of Miamians past and present. The faces found in this issue whether from the 19th century or the 21st could easily be ours, our classmates, our brothers and sisters. Their lives are not so different from our own. They walked the same streets, lived in the same buildings and had the same desires and fears. We are indelibly connected to them through the bonds of place, shared experience and youth. We can learn much from their stories.
for duty. The remaining men on campus were organized into four companies and required to participate in daily military drills at the conclusion of regular classes. In order to provide a modicum of normalcy, Miami still fielded a football team—one of the best in our history—but this squad too fulfilled their military duties after practice while dressed in their gridiron uniforms. Stoddard and Elliot Halls, along with six fraternity houses, were transformed into makeshift barracks supervised under strict military code. A grand review was scheduled for Dec. 7, 1917 where Miami’s future soldiers would demonstrate all they had learned. A freak early winter blizzard dumped six inches of snow during the proceedings, offering a small taste of potential hardships to come. The women of Miami contributed their part as well. Under the auspices of the Red Cross, groups of female students delivered thousands of gauze surgical dressings for the front. In addition, the ladies produced “240 bed shirts, 50 sweaters, 40 pairs of wristlets, 40 socks and five helmets” during the winter of 1918. With each passing week, a steady trickle of students left
Oxford for battle. At the anniversary of Miami’s founding in February 1918, former students Bert Bartlow and Alfred Upham delivered patriotic speeches sharing stories of Miami’s many contributions during the Civil War. Inspired by the addresses, eight more Miami men set down their books, picked up a gun, and were off to the front. In April 1918 word came that Miami’s “most gifted athlete and most popular student” of the class of 1917, Carlos Bear, had died in the line of duty. An Oxford native as well, an emotional funeral held in Hall Auditorium brought the toll of the war to Miami’s front door. A plaque dedicated to Baer still remains on one of the historic ticket booths that surround Yager Stadium. All tolled, 11 Miami men lost their lives over the course of the war. On Oct. 1, 400 Miami men were inducted into the army under the new federal Student’s Army Training Corp. While the immediate ramifications were minimal from the previous year, all who were inducted did so with the understanding they could be called to duty at any time. To make matters worse, October saw the deadly arrival of the
Great Flu Pandemic of 1918. In two short weeks, seven Miami students succumbed to the fatal disease. Thus, the gleeful tidings of Nov. 11, 1918 were a tremendous relief for the entire Miami and Oxford community. Following the spontaneous celebrations of the morning, the whole town prepared for a formal parade in the afternoon. Donning a costume hastily put together by her mother, Helen Keen was one of three girls chosen to represent “the future generation.” Keen described the order of the parade thus: “Heads got together and it was decided that the Civil War Veterans who were still living would lead off with their Fife and Drum Corps, followed by three girls representing the future generation, then the Red Cross; a few returned soldiers, some on horse, training troops of Miami and, lastly, the Miami University Band playing patriotic songs. All of this was followed by anyone who felt like marching.” Later in the evening, The Auditorium once again served as a community meeting place featuring many patriotic speeches and boisterous singing. A
Armistice, SEE PAGE 11
Service in Iraq, Balkans gives junior new outlook By Justin Reash Community Editor
For students, Veterans Day can be used as time to reflect on the lives of fellow young adults, and the different paths they took from high school. For Stephen Bailey, his time as a Miami student is his second go-around in college and this time he’s got real-life experience to help him put everything in perspective. Born in Athens, Ohio, Bailey excelled in football at his high school and was awarded an athletic scholarship at Evangel University in Springfield, Missouri. However, after two and a half years of struggling through school, he headed back home and waited tables in Lebanon, Ohio. He then joined the US Army in 1997. After 17 weeks of basic training at Fort Knox, Ky., Bailey was deployed as a tanker in the First Infantry Division stationed in Germany. Known as the “Big Red One,” the 1st infantry has been in service since the onset of WWI. After being in Germany for only a few months, Big Red One was sent to the Balkans to end the Albanian-Serbian conflict in Kosovo. Bailey
was 24 years old at the time and was unsure of what to expect of his first deployment in a conflict zone. “Initially, our battalion commander told us to look at the soldiers next to us and realize that some of them weren’t going to come home,” Bailey said. “That really got me going, but once we were there, we realized exactly what our mission was: to prevent continuous genocide but to not take sides. Being in the Balkans, it felt like I was walking on history.” As a young American
soldier in a foreign land, Bailey learned the harsh and brutal nature of war, even in a relatively discreet conflict. “I remember the first time I was shot at,” Bailey said. “We were on foot patrol and walked into an ambush where guys came up in a truck and shot at us with AK-47s and in an instant they were gone. The biggest thing I learned during my first tour of duty was that you must separate yourself from what your job is. That and not being able to sleep due to incessant indirect fire.” In fact, Bailey and his
unit gave a nickname to a notorious target: the mad mortarman. “This guy would launch mortars indirectly at us from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m. which made it really hard to sleep at night,” Bailey said. Bailey returned to the states as a specialist on Sept. 9, 2001. Two days later, his attitude changed about being deployed again. “I was excited and wanted to participate,” Bailey said.
BAILEY, SEE PAGE 11
CONTRIBUTED BY STEPHEN BAILEY
Bailey with two trainees of the Iraqi National Police in 2004 near Tuz Khurmatu, Iraq, 55 miles south of Kirkuk. Bailey was wounded when an IED exploded near his vehicle in 2005.