The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me

Two middle-aged newspaper editors from a small Kansas town find themselves drafted into the Great War, and the results are as absurd as they are affecting. William Allen White, the famed editor of the Emporia Gazette, and his companion Henry Jay Allen trade their newspaper offices for Red Cross uniforms and passage aboard the ship Espagne, bound for a Europe tearing itself apart. What unfolds is neither a typical war narrative nor simple nostalgia, but rather a sharp, often hilarious account of how ordinary men confront extraordinary times. White captures the comedy of middle-aged editors struggling with military protocol, the strange camaraderie that emerges among strangers crossing an ocean toward uncertainty, and the creeping weight of realizing what they've actually undertaken. Beneath the humor lies genuine pathos: a longing for home, the dawning recognition of global catastrophe, and two men discovering unexpected reserves within themselves. This 1918 portrait of small-town America encountering modern warfare retains its warmth and wit while quietly acknowledging how profoundly the world was changing.