Overview

Fleeing poverty, heartbreak, and the shadow of his famous ancestor, Davy Crockett, young Wesley Foster hops a freight train, leaving home and family far behind.

His journey of self-discovery takes him far from life in rural Arkansas in the years before World War I. He and his buddies ride the rails of America, having grand adventures before joining the US Army.

As young soldiers, they spend the next three-and-a-half years overseas in the Panama Canal Zone, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and China. After eight years, Wesley returns home to his family that had given him up for dead.

Wesley’s next stop is northern France. Following intensive training with the British Empire Forces, he is involved in pitched engagements, sniper duty, and night patrols in No Man’s Land. After being mustard gassed, he spends a brief reprieve from the “Mad Line” in Paris. Wesley returns to his unit and is thrown into fierce combat during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. In one battle the carnage is so horrifying, it is called the “Center of Hell.”

Join Wesley as he grows up in rural poverty, crisscrosses America in boxcars, engages in secret military operations in America’s new territories, and struggles to survive what most thought would be “The War to End All Wars.”

The Siren Beckons

Wesley peers over the top of the trench across the pale ulcerated farm fields into the distant woods where the trees still standing are splintered and stripped of life. They appear as shadows of their former glory in the thick morning mist, which has spread from the river valleys to shroud the battlefield. It is August 8, 1918. It is an eerie morning as British and French artillery have been pounding the German lines since 0420 hours. Thoughts are swirling in Sgt. Wesley Foster’s head as the British assault troops prepare to launch their attack.

In the dim light of dawn, Wesley pulls his weathered and worn Bible from his pack. He turns to Psalms and reads where it says the sun keeps its circuit from one end of heaven to the other. He was taught that God orders all things, including the sun, moon, and stars. They follow their appointed courses to give light and heat by day, and light in the expanse of heaven by night. The seasons come in their appointed time. The wind follows its appointed circuit as it whirls around the earth. He reasons, All things seem to follow God’s plan, does this include man repeating his folly? This thought does not make sense to him. God is not the author of chaos or folly.