Creating Fiction From History: 12/8/2021

John F. Stoddard entered the Armed Services in 1917. John Frank ( his middle name was actually Francis) was immediately shipped off, via New York Harbor, in early June of that same year, along with thousands of other boys from this great nation.

Born in neighboring Waterloo in 1901, John Frank, having grown up in rural Iowa, had never even thought about joining the Army before. He was used to rising early, working the family farm from sunup to sundown, and going to bed when it got dark. The beginning of the end came in 1914, when his father, Robert Jr., who had begun to almost religiously list...