History of Ambulance Company Number 139

They were farmers, clerks, and mechanics from Kansas, suddenly uniformed and waiting for the war to find them. This is their story in their own words: the formation of Kansas Ambulance Company No. 2, the months of training at Camp Hoel and Camp Doniphan, and the restless anticipation before deployment to France. Written by the men who lived it, this chronicle captures something no official history can: the particular texture of ordinary young men confronting the twentieth century's great catastrophe. We hear their excitement and fear, their complaints about army food and drill sergeants, their forging of bonds that would soon be tested under fire. This is grassroots World War I, the war experienced not from headquarters but from the ground up, by ambulance crews who would drive into the chaos to bring back the wounded. For readers who want to understand what the Great War actually felt like to those who fought it, this document remains invaluable. It's a time capsule of American optimism heading into the slaughter, and the moments before everything changed.