Early in April we drew extra equipment. At one o'clock the next morning we were waked up and ordered to pack. Then we stood around until nine when we… - John L. Barkley

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.

Everybody around me was going crazy about the war. I was under age- eighteen- but with as bad a case of war fever as the next fellow. Worse, probably. Because when America went into the war I'd made up my mind that for once I was going to do the same thing everybody else was doing.

General Sladen told me then that I could stand at ease, and I was altogether more comfortable physically than I'd been before. But I was still upset in my mind. I kept thinking how awful it would be if there'd been some mistake, and they'd picked out the wrong fellow to decorate.
I still didn't know what it was General Pershing had pinned on me, so as soon as I dared I squinted alng my nose. I couldn't see anything but a little blue ribbon with white stars. I knew that the medal beneath it was the Congressional Medal of Honor. There'd been two of those in our family before. The first one had been given to a major-general who was related to my mother's family.