d be unintelligible to a reader, for while it
records the things he wished to remember of his camp-life, the trip
through England, his stay in France, and tells in order the "places he
had been," it is made up of swift-moving notes that enter into no
explanatory details. But to him the notations could--even in the evening
of his life--revive the chain of incidents in memory. His handling of
his diary is typical of his mind and his methods.

To him details are essential, but when they are done carefully and
thoroughly their functions are performed and thereafter they are
uninteresting. They are but the steps that must be taken to walk a given
distance. His mind instead dwells upon the object of the walk.

When he left his home at Pall Mall he reported to the local recruiting
station at Jamestown, the county seat. He was sent to Camp Gordon near
Atlanta, Ga., and reached there the night of November 16, 1917. His
diary runs:

"I was placed in the 21st training battalion. Then I was called the
first morning of my army life to police up in the yard all the old
cigarette butts and I thought that was pretty hard as I didn't smoke.
But I did it just the same."

His history tells in one sentence, of months of his experience in
training with the "awkward squad" and of his regimental assignment:

"I stayed there and done squads right and squads left until the first of
February, 1918, and then I was sent to Company G, 328 Inf. 82nd Div."

This was the "All America" Division, made up of selected men from every
state in the Union and in its ranks were the descendants of men who came
from every nation that composed the Allies that were fighting Germany.

In his notes Alvin records temptations that came to him while at Camp
Gordon:

"Well they gave me a gun and, oh my! that old gun was just full of
grease, and I had to clean that old gun for inspection. So I had a hard
time to get that old gun clean, and oh, those were trying hours for a
boy like me trying to live for God and do his blessed will. ... Then the
Lord would help me to bear my hard tasks.

"So there I was. I was the homesickest boy you ever seen."

When he entered the army Alvin York stood six feet in the clear. There
were but few in camp physically his equal. In any crowd of men he drew
attention. The huge muscles of his body glided lithely over each other.
He had been swinging with long, firm strides up the mountainsides. His
arms and shoulders had developed by