When we pulled out into the winter night and the real snow, our snow, began to stretch out beside us and twinkle against the windows, and the dim lights of small Wisconsin stations moved by, a sharp wild brace came suddenly into the air. That's my middle-west - not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow.

I confess I was unprepared for what I everywhere met early in 1918, traveling chiefly in the South, the Middle West, and the Southwest. The country was no longer quiet, no longer reflective. On every street corner, around every table, it was fighting the War, watchfully, suspiciously, determinedly. All the paraphernalia of life had taken on war coloring; the platforms from which I spoke were so swathed in flags that I often had to watch my step entering and leaving. I found I was expected to wear a flag-not a corsage. At every lunch or dinner where I was a guest all declarations were red, white, and blue.

LAST summer I happened to be crossing the plains of Iowa in a season of intense heat, and it was my good fortune to have for a traveling companion James Quayle Burden — Jim Burden, as we still call him in the West. He and I are old friends — we grew up together in the same Nebraska town — and we had much to say to each other. While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one's childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said.

This man is asking what I have done in the war. The only claims that I make are, after many visits to Germany and Austria, I persistently warned the public here that the war was coming. I did so also on your side of the Atlantic when I spoke at Winnipeg in 1909 and in the same year at Chicago and San Francisco. I do not suppose that I had more than two or three thousand supporters at that time, but among them was Lord Roberts, who was as violently abused in Canada and the United States as he was here. When I endeavoured to introduce the aeroplane to officials here, again the only support I got was from Lord Roberts. I had to encourage it by huge prizes for flights. Our Government ignored the aeroplane, but the German Government replied to my prizes by a steady stream of premiums awarded to Germans who broke the records of other nations.

While the train flashed through never-ending miles of ripe wheat, by country towns and bright-flowered pastures and oak groves wilting in the sun, we sat in the observation car, where the woodwork was hot to the touch and red dust lay deep over everything. The dust and heat, the burning wind, reminded us of many things. We were talking about what it is like to spend one’s childhood in little towns like these, buried in wheat and corn, under stimulating extremes of climate: burning summers when the world lies green and billowy beneath a brilliant sky, when one is fairly stifled in vegetation, in the color and smell of strong weeds and heavy harvests; blustery winters with little snow, when the whole country is stripped bare and gray as sheet-iron. We agreed that no one who had not grown up in a little prairie town could know anything about it. It was a kind of freemasonry, we said.

For reasons which many persons thought ridiculous, Mrs. Lightfoot Lee decided to pass the winter in Washington. She was in excellent health, but she said that the climate would do her good.

Jeff rode north up the military road. It was a cloudy morning in June, 1865. The war was over, and they were going home. It was hard to get used to being out of the army. He had traveled so widely, learned so much, and had so many things happen to him that it seemed he had been gone fifteen years instead of nearly four. He wanted very much to see his family. And he wanted very much to see Kansas, now that peace had finally come.

My last stop was in Anchorage, Alaska, which is real handy and a great place to visit in February if you...if you get the chance. After that, I went to Fairbanks, Alaska, and my manager's prediction that there wouldn't be a lot of snow in Fairbanks, Alaska in February was off by about seven and a half fucking FEET! THE most boring town I've ever been to in my life. Sorry if you're from there. It is a bore-hole. And I was stranded there for THREE DAYS. Count 'em, one...tick...[pauses and looks at his watch]...tock...tick...Stranded there with the Eskimo people. Not a great looking group of folks. And I mentioned that onstage and they got pissed off. And I didn't see why they got so mad. I didn't insinuate that they had no character, I mentioned that they weren't attractive...I thought they knew. Apparently, I let some big cat out of the bag. Have you seen their teeth? They can make keys. You don't have to be in Fairbanks very long before you learn what that nose rubbing deal's all about. I'm good. Anyway, I got this scathing letter from the head Eskimo, Frosty or whatever his name was, and halfway through the letter he said he would have me know that the Inuit tribe is one of the purest races on the planet and I'm like, "That's kinda what I'm talkin' about. Nobody will have sex with these people." And then later in the letter it said there are less Inuits every year, which I guess means it's getting to where where they won't even have sex with each other.

It was a small town by a small river and a small lake in a small northern part of a Midwest state. There wasn't so much wilderness around you couldn't see the town. But on the other hand there wasn't so much town you couldn't see and feel and touch and smell the wilderness. The town was full of trees. And dry grass and dead flowers now that autumn was here. And full of fences to walk on and sidewalks to skate on and a large ravine to tumble in and yell across. And the town was full of...

Boys.
And it was the afternoon of Halloween.
And all the houses shut against a cool wind.
And the town was full of cold sunlight.
But suddenly, the day was gone.
Night came out from under each tree and spread.

The companies of my battalion had undergone training in the winter, and there were now members of the Save-the-Poor Committee in every company. After going through the discussions on the current situation conducted from the first to the third moon, the men and officers in my battalion had a better understanding of the Northern Expedition. They no longer feared it now, but were pleased to see it happen.

That's my Middle West-not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are still called through decades by a family's name.

Sometimes I rode north to the big prairie-dog town to watch the brown earth-owls fly home in the late afternoon and go down to their nests underground with the dogs.

Each man in his own way had gone through what Richard Winters experienced: a realization that doing his best was a better way of getting through the Army than hanging around with the sad excuses for soldiers they met in the recruiting depots or basic training. They wanted to make their Army time positive, a learning and maturing and challenging experience.

They headed northwest for a destination unknown, one man, one woman traversing barren lands that held no water, moving into canyons where desperadoes might be lurking, and crossing lands often ravaged by wandering bands of Hottentot and Bushmen outlaws.