WWI Argonne Campaign Confusion & Mustard Gas with two Utah Heroes

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All across America and around the world, this
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is Veterans Radio. This is Veterans Radio. Good
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day. I'm Jim Fosson. I'm the Officer of the Deck
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today here on Veterans Radio and thanks for joining
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We post something new every week and you're going
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to find it informative. This is a story that
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we're going to tell you about a couple of heroes
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from the state of Utah. This is part of a book
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that C. Douglas Stirner and his friends have
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written on heroes of Utah. You can find this
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on Amazon. But these are interesting stories
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that kind of got lost to history. And I want
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to pass this one along because... It's got a
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little intrigue about who the hero was, what
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name he operated under. I think you're going
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to find this interesting. So stay tuned and listen
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in. win the nation's absolute highest military
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honor for taking a machine gun bullet to the
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head, saving his entire platoon, and then just
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get stripped of his rank and demoted to a private
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days after the war ends. Right. It makes zero
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sense on paper. Exactly. Or on the flip side
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of that same coin, how does a highly decorated
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war hero earn those exact same honors when, legally
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speaking, the guy never actually existed? It's
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the ultimate paradox of the historical record,
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really. I mean, we tend to think of military
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history as this, uh, this perfectly engineered
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machine, you know, clean timelines, objective
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facts, neat little maps on a general's table.
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Yeah. The textbook version of things. Right.
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But the reality is always, well, it's much darker
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and muddier and infinitely more complicated than
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that. So if you were joining us today, I want
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you to put yourself in this head space for a
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moment. Imagine you were sitting in a dimly lit
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national archive somewhere. Oh, I love that smell,
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like dust and old binding. Yes, exactly. The
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air is dusty and you are pulling out these really
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brittle yellow documents from this forgotten
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file labeled Utah Mystery Heroes. Which is an
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amazing title for a file, by the way. It really
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is. And you're expecting to find dry logistical
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data, troop movements, supply requisitions, that
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kind of thing. But as you flip through these
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fragile pages, the rigid official timeline completely
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cracks open. It just falls apart. Yeah. And what
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spills out are these incredibly jagged, contradictory,
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profoundly human mysteries hidden right there
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in the margins. Because ultimately, history is
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built out of the lived experiences of flawed,
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traumatized, and just entirely unpredictable
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human beings. I mean, their lives rarely fit
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into those neat little bureaucratic boxes. Today
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we are doing a deep dive into the margins of
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one very specific file to uncover the forgotten
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stories of two American soldiers from World War
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I. Two very different men. Very different. But
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they are from the exact same military unit. Company
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A, 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment of the
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1st Division. So they somehow end up side by
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side in the exact same crucible. Right. And they
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commit these acts of unfathomable valor on the
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exact same French battlefield, literally exactly
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one day apart in October of 1918. Which statistically
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is just wild. It's insane. And one man leaves
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behind a life that is a string of heartbreaking
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unanswered questions ending in a tragedy that
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the military records try Very hard to ignore.
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Yeah, they gloss right over it. And the other
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is a 16 year old kid who pulled off this massive
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elaborate deception just to get himself into
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the absolute worst place on earth. So to really
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understand how these two vastly different trajectories
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converge in that exact same muddy ravine, we
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kind of have to deeply examine the environment
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that forged them. That's the stage for us. Right.
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We have to look at what the First Division of
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the American Expeditionary Forces, the AEF, what
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they were actually walking into during the autumn
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of 1918. Let's get into it. We are talking about
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the crucible of Exermont, which is part of the
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infamous Meuse -Argonne campaign. And right out
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of the gate, this file throws us a massive curveball.
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It really does. It's a glaring textual contradiction.
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Yeah, the text explicitly states that this unit
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arrived in France in June 1918. But then literally
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in the very next sentence, it says they went
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into combat on the front lines at Cantini on
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May 28th, 1918. Which is A logistical impossibility?
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Right. I was staring at the page thinking, wait,
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how does a military unit fight a major frontline
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battle a full month before they even arrive in
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the country? It's a phenomenal catch, though.
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And I think it serves as the perfect primer for
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how we need to approach his historical documents
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in general. Because it's obviously a typo, right?
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Almost certainly a typographical error made by
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whoever compiled this specific record. But it
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highlights something crucial for anyone digging
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into the past. Documents are not omniscient.
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They are typed up by exhausted clerks, or transcribed
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decades later from muddy, blood -stained, handwritten
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notes out of a trench. Precisely. You know, when
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you read primary or secondary historical texts,
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there's this natural human tendency to assume
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absolute authority. Like, if it's in print, it's
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fact. But the past is reconstructed by fallible
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humans. dates get transposed, months get swapped.
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Exactly. If you want to piece together the truth,
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you have to actively interrogate the text. You
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have to read between the lines and acknowledge
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that the official record is, well, it's messy.
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And that clerical error really grounds the mysteries
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of our two heroes. I mean, if the massive apparatus
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of the U .S. military can't even get the month
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of their arrival straight, it's no wonder their
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personal lives slip through the cracks. Absolutely.
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But, regardless of the typo about their arrival,
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what the file is unequivocally clear about is
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the sheer unrelenting brutality of their deployment.
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They didn't ease into it at all. Not even a little.
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The 1st Division was thrust right into the meat
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grinder at Cantigny, then the Soissons offensive
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in mid -July, and then Saint -Mille in mid -September.
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They're just being battered over and over again,
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taking immense casualties, barely reforming their
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lines before they're pushed into the next offensive.
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And all of this culminates on October 4, 1918.
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The Division is ordered to attack and flank the
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enemy out of the Argonne at Exermont. So, Exermont
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is in northeast France. And the geography of
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this specific battlefield is just a nightmare
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for an attacking force. Oh, it's terrible terrain.
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We're not talking about flat, open, easily traversable
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farmland here. No. The terrain is defined by
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rolling hills, steep, jagged ravines, and the
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Air River Valley. And it was heavily fortified
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by the entrenched German forces. The document
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actually notes that this geography made it an,
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quote, excellent defensive stronghold. But the
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tactical layout is only half the terror. Yeah,
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what really stopped me cold was the environmental
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reality of what these soldiers were breathing.
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The gas. The gas. The file details that before
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and during the assault, the division was subjected
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to continuous and devastating gas attacks. And
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it specifically mentions that the troops were
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holding in these ravines, which essentially turned
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into natural gas traps. That's decimating them
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before they could even begin their assault. Well,
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the physics of chemical warfare in 1918 makes
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this a horrifying tactical reality. Consider
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the basic infantry instinct when you're under
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heavy machine gun and artillery fire. You want
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to get as low as possible. Exactly. Every fiber
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of your being and every piece of tactical training
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you possess tells you to seek the lowest possible
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ground. You want defilade. You throw yourself
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into a ditch or a ravine to get out of the direct
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line of sight, to protect your body from flying
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shrapnel and bullets. Right, you duck. Get low
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into the earth. But the chemical agents heavily
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utilized in this theater, specifically sulfur
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mustard, commonly known as mustard gas, and phosgene,
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they are significantly heavier than the surrounding
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air. So when those artillery shells shatter and
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deliver the chemical payload, the gas doesn't
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disperse upward and blow away in the breeze?
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No. It sinks. It flows downward, seeking the
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absolute lowest point of elevation. It behaves
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almost exactly like a fluid. So the very ravines
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that these young men threw themselves into to
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survive the kinetic energy of the artillery?
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Became giant, inescapable bowls of poison. Wow.
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If you've ever been to a Halloween party with
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dry ice, think about how that works. That's a
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great visual. You drop the dry ice into a cauldron,
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and that thick, heavy smoke doesn't float up
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to the ceiling. It pours over the edges, drops
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straight to the floor, and pools around everyone's
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ankles. Filling in every dip, crack, and low
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point in the room. Yes, that is an incredibly
00:10:01.970 --> 00:10:04.970
accurate analogy. Now take that dry ice fog and
00:10:04.970 --> 00:10:07.730
make it completely invisible. Or perhaps just
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a faint, deceptive yellow -green haze lingering
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in the morning mist. And breathing it in doesn't
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just choke you. It chemically burns your respiratory
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system from the inside out, causing your lungs
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to literally blister and fill with fluid. It's
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just horrific. Mustard gas also aggressively
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attacks exposed skin, causing horrific burns,
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and it blinds the eyes. So you dive into a ravine
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to save your life from a bullet, and by doing
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so you plunge your entire body into the heaviest,
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most lethal concentration of chemical agent on
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the battlefield. The file says they were decimated
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before the assault even started. Just the psychological
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weight of that is paralyzing. And the environment
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itself is fighting them. The record describes
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continual autumn rains, river mists, and churned
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up earth, calling the entire battlefield a muddy
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mire. We really have to factor in the sheer physical
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exhaustion before a single shot is even fired
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by the Americans. You're shivering in near -freezing
00:11:02.559 --> 00:11:05.039
autumn rain. Your uniform is heavy and soaked.
00:11:05.340 --> 00:11:07.519
You're covered in thick, churned up mud that
00:11:07.519 --> 00:11:09.700
creates suction on your boots, making every single
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step require an immense caloric effort. And the
00:11:12.519 --> 00:11:15.259
river mist obscures your vision, amplifying the
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terror of the unknown. You know the enemy is
00:11:17.570 --> 00:11:19.549
heavily fortified on the high ground above you,
00:11:19.870 --> 00:11:21.669
and you know the low ground you are standing
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in could fill with deadly gas at any second.
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There's literally no safe place to exist. Just
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maintaining your sanity in that environment,
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let alone preparing to charge up a hill into
00:11:31.269 --> 00:11:34.210
interlocking fields of machine gun fire, requires
00:11:34.210 --> 00:11:37.269
an almost superhuman level of mental endurance.
00:11:37.509 --> 00:11:39.909
Which brings us to the first man who walked into
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this absolute nightmare Edgar A. Runyon. Let's
00:11:42.809 --> 00:11:45.129
dig into his background. Yeah, because the file
00:11:45.129 --> 00:11:47.269
refers to him as a mystery right off the bat.
00:11:47.909 --> 00:11:49.210
But when you look at his timeline, the first
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thing you realize is that he was not some fresh
00:11:51.590 --> 00:11:54.070
-faced, naive recruit when he stepped into that
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muddy ravine. Far from it. Runyon was a hardened,
00:11:57.850 --> 00:11:59.929
highly seasoned professional soldier. He was
00:11:59.929 --> 00:12:03.600
born in Lawrence, Iowa in June of 1891. The early
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years are a bit of a blank, but by around 1914,
00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:09.159
he is living in Boise, Idaho. And he enlists
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in the Idaho National Guard's Second Infantry
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Regiment. And here is where his military resume
00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:17.539
gets really intense. From March 1916 to February
00:12:17.539 --> 00:12:21.100
1917, he serves in the Mexican Punitive Expedition.
00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:24.039
Which is a critical piece of context for understanding
00:12:24.039 --> 00:12:26.669
his mindset. The Mexican punitive expedition
00:12:26.669 --> 00:12:29.909
was a massive military operation. Ten thousand
00:12:29.909 --> 00:12:31.950
U .S. Army soldiers crossed the southern border,
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right? Right into the harsh deserts of northern
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Mexico. They were hunting down the revolutionary
00:12:36.590 --> 00:12:38.889
leader Pancho Villa after he attacked a town
00:12:38.889 --> 00:12:41.649
in New Mexico. So Runyon has spent nearly a year
00:12:41.649 --> 00:12:44.009
in the brutal, scorching, arid environment of
00:12:44.009 --> 00:12:47.110
the American Southwest and Mexico. He is participating
00:12:47.110 --> 00:12:50.070
in what was essentially the last great cavalry
00:12:50.070 --> 00:12:52.990
campaign, while simultaneously being introduced
00:12:52.990 --> 00:12:55.990
to early motorized transport and aircraft. So
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he knows how to march. He knows how to suffer
00:12:58.610 --> 00:13:01.409
deprivation. He understands the strict hierarchy
00:13:01.409 --> 00:13:04.190
of military discipline, and he knows how to function
00:13:04.190 --> 00:13:07.330
under the threat of sudden violence. He is deeply,
00:13:07.330 --> 00:13:09.529
deeply institutionalized in the culture of the
00:13:09.529 --> 00:13:12.230
military. But by the spring of 1917, his time
00:13:12.230 --> 00:13:14.570
is up. He is stationed at Jefferson Barracks
00:13:14.570 --> 00:13:17.600
in Missouri. and the file is very specific about
00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:20.179
this detail. His enlistment is completely finished.
00:13:22.990 --> 00:13:25.850
quite literally about to be discharged and returned
00:13:25.850 --> 00:13:28.289
to civilian life. The timing of this is just
00:13:28.289 --> 00:13:30.669
cinematic. The United States officially declares
00:13:30.669 --> 00:13:33.950
war and enters World War I on April 6th, 1970.
00:13:34.169 --> 00:13:36.230
And Runyon's reenlistment paperwork is dated
00:13:36.230 --> 00:13:39.230
April 11th. A mere five -day window. It's unbelievable.
00:13:39.409 --> 00:13:41.429
I mean, put yourself in his boots for a moment.
00:13:41.509 --> 00:13:43.730
You've done your time. You spent a year eating
00:13:43.730 --> 00:13:45.809
dust and chasing ghosts in the Mexican desert.
00:13:45.929 --> 00:13:48.230
You have your bags packed. Your discharge papers
00:13:48.230 --> 00:13:50.029
are probably sitting on a desk somewhere waiting
00:13:50.029 --> 00:13:52.370
for a final signature. You've got one foot out
00:13:52.370 --> 00:13:54.450
the door, ready to go home and sleep in a real
00:13:54.450 --> 00:13:57.429
bed. And suddenly the news comes down that the
00:13:57.429 --> 00:14:00.210
country is going to war in Europe. And instead
00:14:00.210 --> 00:14:03.210
of walking away, which no one would have faulted
00:14:03.210 --> 00:14:06.129
him for, he had served his country. He drops
00:14:06.129 --> 00:14:09.730
his bags, turns around and signs a new contract
00:14:09.730 --> 00:14:13.360
to go to the most industrialized, brutal conflict
00:14:13.360 --> 00:14:15.580
the world had ever seen. It speaks volumes about
00:14:15.580 --> 00:14:18.080
his psychological makeup. It really does. Whether
00:14:18.080 --> 00:14:21.259
it was driven by a profound sense of duty, patriotism,
00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:23.960
or perhaps a realization that the highly structured
00:14:23.960 --> 00:14:26.899
world of the military was the only place he felt
00:14:26.899 --> 00:14:30.240
he truly belonged after Mexico, he consciously
00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:32.519
chose the fire. However, when he fills out that
00:14:32.519 --> 00:14:34.720
re -enlistment paperwork on April 11th in Missouri,
00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:37.240
he does something that completely baffles the
00:14:37.240 --> 00:14:40.139
historical record. Ah, yes, the Utah connection.
00:14:40.480 --> 00:14:43.039
This is so strange to me. On his official paperwork,
00:14:43.220 --> 00:14:45.960
he lists his home of record as Black Rock, Utah.
00:14:46.139 --> 00:14:48.980
Which is incredibly random. I kept re -reading
00:14:48.980 --> 00:14:51.220
this part of the file, trying to make the geography
00:14:51.220 --> 00:14:53.179
work. I mean, the guy was born in Iowa. He lived
00:14:53.179 --> 00:14:55.480
and served in Idaho. He is currently standing
00:14:55.480 --> 00:14:58.019
in a military barracks in Missouri. And yet,
00:14:58.340 --> 00:15:01.480
Black Rock, Utah. Where on earth does Black Rock,
00:15:01.480 --> 00:15:04.220
Utah come from? Did he have family there? Did
00:15:04.220 --> 00:15:07.019
he own land there? The file explicitly states
00:15:07.019 --> 00:15:09.759
his connection to Utah still remains a mystery.
00:15:10.110 --> 00:15:13.549
There is no documented historical reason why
00:15:13.549 --> 00:15:16.769
he chose that specific remote desert outpost
00:15:16.769 --> 00:15:19.389
in Millard County, Utah. Wow. Yet because he
00:15:19.389 --> 00:15:21.590
wrote that name down on that fateful day in April,
00:15:21.990 --> 00:15:24.590
his official military legacy was permanently
00:15:24.590 --> 00:15:28.169
diverted. His records are maintained in the Military
00:15:28.169 --> 00:15:32.850
Records, Utah. 1861, 1970. And when local newspapers
00:15:32.850 --> 00:15:35.509
eventually wrote about his heroism, they proudly
00:15:35.509 --> 00:15:37.730
claimed him as a native son of Black Rock. It
00:15:37.730 --> 00:15:39.049
really highlights what we were talking about
00:15:39.049 --> 00:15:41.470
earlier regarding the margins of history. A man
00:15:41.470 --> 00:15:45.009
can be a documented, celebrated state hero, immortalized
00:15:45.009 --> 00:15:47.990
in Utah's official archives, and yet have absolutely
00:15:47.990 --> 00:15:50.429
no known actual ties to the state whatsoever.
00:15:50.590 --> 00:15:53.190
The bureaucracy just blindly accepts whatever's
00:15:53.190 --> 00:15:55.600
written on the form. It raises fascinating questions
00:15:55.600 --> 00:15:58.120
about the transient, often untethered nature
00:15:58.120 --> 00:16:00.879
of military life in the early 20th century. I
00:16:00.879 --> 00:16:03.100
mean, soldiers moved where the trains and the
00:16:03.100 --> 00:16:04.840
army sent them. So maybe he just passed through.
00:16:05.179 --> 00:16:07.419
Perhaps he passed through Black Rock on a troop
00:16:07.419 --> 00:16:09.639
train heading from Idaho down to the Mexican
00:16:09.639 --> 00:16:12.659
border and simply liked the rugged sound of the
00:16:12.659 --> 00:16:16.029
name. Or a wartime romance. Perhaps he had a
00:16:16.029 --> 00:16:17.970
fleeting correspondence with someone from the
00:16:17.970 --> 00:16:21.269
area. Or perhaps in the chaotic rush of processing
00:16:21.269 --> 00:16:24.129
thousands of enlistments, he deliberately chose
00:16:24.129 --> 00:16:27.629
an obscure location to obscure his actual destination
00:16:27.629 --> 00:16:31.539
or past. We will never truly know. It is a genuine,
00:16:31.860 --> 00:16:34.159
unresolvable mystery. What isn't a mystery, though,
00:16:34.259 --> 00:16:37.360
is how terrifyingly capable he was once he actually
00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:40.299
deployed to France. Right. Because by the time
00:16:40.299 --> 00:16:43.100
that grim October rolls around, he's already
00:16:43.100 --> 00:16:45.720
been cited for bravery at the Suissons offensive
00:16:45.720 --> 00:16:48.340
in July and cited again during the Saint -Mihal
00:16:48.340 --> 00:16:50.669
offensive in September. The man is a tactical
00:16:50.669 --> 00:16:53.049
machine, which is exactly why the army promoted
00:16:53.049 --> 00:16:55.509
him to corporal. He was a proven commodity. He
00:16:55.509 --> 00:16:57.490
was a leader who had demonstrated an ability
00:16:57.490 --> 00:17:00.549
to maintain absolute composure and tactical awareness
00:17:00.549 --> 00:17:03.769
while under immense fire. And on October 9th,
00:17:03.830 --> 00:17:06.950
1918, he was going to need every single ounce
00:17:06.950 --> 00:17:08.710
of that experience just to survive the morning.
00:17:08.859 --> 00:17:11.099
Let's walk through what the historical file tells
00:17:11.099 --> 00:17:13.779
us about October 9th, because this is Runyon's
00:17:13.779 --> 00:17:16.339
finest hour. Okay, so Company A is advancing
00:17:16.339 --> 00:17:18.680
under heavy fire toward the fortified heights
00:17:18.680 --> 00:17:21.799
near Exermont. The enemy is just unleashing artillery
00:17:21.799 --> 00:17:24.160
and interlocking machine gunfire on them. And
00:17:24.160 --> 00:17:27.799
the text states, the enemy inflicted many casualties.
00:17:28.200 --> 00:17:30.819
And then it drops this incredibly heavy, highly
00:17:30.819 --> 00:17:34.359
specific tactical detail, including all the sergeants
00:17:34.359 --> 00:17:37.599
in his platoon. We really need to pause and dissect
00:17:37.599 --> 00:17:40.180
the sheer chaos of that moment. Yeah. If you
00:17:40.180 --> 00:17:42.279
understand infantry tactics, you know that the
00:17:42.279 --> 00:17:44.140
sergeants, the non -commissioned officers or
00:17:44.140 --> 00:17:46.779
NCOs, they are the absolute backbone of the unit.
00:17:46.920 --> 00:17:49.240
The commissioned officers might point in a map
00:17:49.240 --> 00:17:51.960
and dictate the broader strategy. But it's the
00:17:51.960 --> 00:17:53.900
sergeants who hold the tactical line together
00:17:53.900 --> 00:17:56.299
in the mud. They direct the individual rates
00:17:56.299 --> 00:17:59.019
of fire, they maintain the spacing between soldiers,
00:17:59.420 --> 00:18:01.539
they enforce discipline, and they sustain the
00:18:01.539 --> 00:18:03.599
forward momentum. They're the ones actually yelling,
00:18:03.779 --> 00:18:07.779
move up, get down, return fire. Exactly. So when
00:18:07.779 --> 00:18:10.519
a platoon is pinned down in a muddy mire, taking
00:18:10.519 --> 00:18:13.519
devastating fire, and suddenly all the sergeants
00:18:13.519 --> 00:18:15.599
go down killed or severely wounded in a matter
00:18:15.599 --> 00:18:18.319
of seconds? The chain of command instant painlessly
00:18:18.319 --> 00:18:21.000
evaporates. It vanishes. Panic has to be the
00:18:21.000 --> 00:18:23.500
immediate default. You're wet. You're terrified
00:18:23.500 --> 00:18:25.319
of gas. The air is filled with flying metal.
00:18:25.619 --> 00:18:28.500
And suddenly every single experienced leader
00:18:28.500 --> 00:18:30.319
who is supposed to tell you what to do to stay
00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:32.799
alive is bleeding out in the mud next to you.
00:18:33.240 --> 00:18:36.259
The natural historically documented consequence
00:18:36.259 --> 00:18:39.000
of a tactical vacuum like that is catastrophic.
00:18:39.559 --> 00:18:41.980
The platoon usually breaks apart, retreats in
00:18:41.980 --> 00:18:44.880
a disorganized route or simply freezes in place
00:18:44.880 --> 00:18:47.619
and is entirely annihilated by the machine gunners.
00:18:48.099 --> 00:18:50.980
But the file tells us that Corporal Runyon immediately
00:18:50.980 --> 00:18:53.019
assumed command. He doesn't wait for a lieutenant
00:18:53.019 --> 00:18:55.059
to run over from another sector. No, he doesn't
00:18:55.059 --> 00:18:57.799
wait for orders. He steps directly into the leadership
00:18:57.799 --> 00:19:00.339
vacuum. And he doesn't just hold the defensive
00:19:00.339 --> 00:19:03.339
line. The text specifically notes he led his
00:19:03.339 --> 00:19:06.059
men through several successful attacks. He is
00:19:06.059 --> 00:19:08.200
physically pushing them forward, maneuvering
00:19:08.200 --> 00:19:10.380
them through the terrain against a fortified
00:19:10.380 --> 00:19:14.660
enemy. But then the unthinkable happens. Runyon
00:19:14.660 --> 00:19:18.150
is hit. And we are not talking about being clipped
00:19:18.150 --> 00:19:20.549
by a piece of flying rock or grazing shrapnel,
00:19:20.910 --> 00:19:23.650
the text is brutally specific. It says he was
00:19:23.650 --> 00:19:25.569
wounded in the head by a machine gun bullet.
00:19:25.670 --> 00:19:28.349
I just can't fathom a high caliber machine gun
00:19:28.349 --> 00:19:30.970
bullet to the head. Honestly, just surviving
00:19:30.970 --> 00:19:33.569
the kinetic impact of that on a muddy battlefield
00:19:33.569 --> 00:19:36.490
in 1918 with the rudimentary field medicine of
00:19:36.490 --> 00:19:39.410
the time is an absolute miracle. But what he
00:19:39.410 --> 00:19:42.430
does next defies logic and basic human biology.
00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:45.579
The text says he refused to be evacuated and
00:19:45.579 --> 00:19:47.619
continued to lead until his company was relieved.
00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:49.960
We have to consider the sheer terrifying force
00:19:49.960 --> 00:19:52.880
of will that this requires. From our modern medical
00:19:52.880 --> 00:19:55.019
understanding, we know that a gunshot wound to
00:19:55.019 --> 00:19:57.559
the head, even if it is a grazing blow that tears
00:19:57.559 --> 00:20:00.400
the scalp or chips the skull without fully penetrating
00:20:00.400 --> 00:20:04.119
the brain pan, it causes immense immediate trauma.
00:20:04.160 --> 00:20:06.700
Oh, yeah. You have the blunt concussive force
00:20:06.700 --> 00:20:08.839
which rattles the brain inside the skull. You
00:20:08.839 --> 00:20:11.539
have profound disorientation ringing in the ears
00:20:11.539 --> 00:20:14.119
and likely a severe loss of equilibrium. Not
00:20:14.119 --> 00:20:16.940
to mention the blood. Head wounds bleed incredibly
00:20:16.940 --> 00:20:19.480
heavily. He would have been blinded by his own
00:20:19.480 --> 00:20:22.039
blood, struggling to remain conscious, likely
00:20:22.039 --> 00:20:24.700
heavily concussed. And he is still screening
00:20:24.700 --> 00:20:27.440
orders. He knows that if he leaves, if he lets
00:20:27.440 --> 00:20:29.799
the medics strap him to a stretcher and drag
00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:33.339
him to the rear, this terrified leaderless platoon
00:20:33.339 --> 00:20:35.980
that he just managed to rally is going to completely
00:20:35.980 --> 00:20:39.319
fall apart. The adrenaline, the dedication, and
00:20:39.319 --> 00:20:42.319
the absolute selfless loyalty to those men must
00:20:42.319 --> 00:20:45.200
have been entirely overwhelming to his own biological
00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:47.759
drive for survival. And the military hierarchy
00:20:47.759 --> 00:20:50.960
eventually recognized the staggering magnitude
00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:54.200
of this act. The file provides the actual official
00:20:54.200 --> 00:20:56.619
citation for his distinguished service cross.
00:20:56.839 --> 00:20:58.920
And when we look closely at the language of that
00:20:58.920 --> 00:21:02.240
citation, we see a fascinating contrast in how
00:21:02.240 --> 00:21:04.380
history is officially recorded versus how it
00:21:04.380 --> 00:21:06.480
is actually lived. Yeah, read the text of the
00:21:06.480 --> 00:21:08.259
citation. You have it there, right? Yeah, I have
00:21:08.259 --> 00:21:10.759
it right here. It reads, The President of the
00:21:10.759 --> 00:21:13.339
United States of America, authorized by Act of
00:21:13.339 --> 00:21:16.660
Congress July 9th, 1918, takes pleasure in presenting
00:21:16.660 --> 00:21:19.000
the Distinguished Service Cross to Sergeant Edgar
00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:21.519
Almond Runyon, and it lists his serial number
00:21:21.519 --> 00:21:26.180
45988. for extraordinary heroism in action while
00:21:26.180 --> 00:21:28.900
serving with Company A north of Exremont, France,
00:21:29.059 --> 00:21:32.940
9 October 1918. Notice how incredibly sterile
00:21:32.940 --> 00:21:35.579
and bureaucratic it sounds. So detached, continues.
00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:38.539
Sergeant Runyon assumed command of a platoon
00:21:38.539 --> 00:21:40.779
after all other sergeants of the platoon had
00:21:40.779 --> 00:21:43.140
become casualties and led it through several
00:21:43.140 --> 00:21:45.839
successive attacks. Although wounded in the head
00:21:45.839 --> 00:21:48.140
by a machine gun bullet, he refused to go to
00:21:48.140 --> 00:21:50.220
the rear for medical attention but remained in
00:21:50.220 --> 00:21:52.299
command of the platoon until his company was
00:21:52.299 --> 00:21:54.599
relieved. The language of the state is designed
00:21:54.599 --> 00:21:57.000
to create order out of chaos, takes pleasure
00:21:57.000 --> 00:21:59.599
in presenting, refused to go to the rear. Like
00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:01.539
it was just a polite disagreement about going
00:22:01.539 --> 00:22:04.380
to the doctor. Exactly. It takes the absolute
00:22:04.380 --> 00:22:07.579
unimaginable horror, the suffocating mud, the
00:22:07.579 --> 00:22:10.200
threat of blistering gas, the screams of dying
00:22:10.200 --> 00:22:13.160
NCOs, and the reality of a man with a shattered
00:22:13.160 --> 00:22:16.000
skull dragging his terrified men through a literal
00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:19.440
hellscape. And it packages it neatly into a tidy,
00:22:19.859 --> 00:22:22.160
typewritten paragraph authorized by an act of
00:22:22.160 --> 00:22:24.660
Congress. It points to the act and says, there
00:22:24.660 --> 00:22:28.119
is the heroism, categorized, documented. stamped
00:22:28.119 --> 00:22:31.480
for approval. But it completely sanitizes the
00:22:31.480 --> 00:22:34.500
violent reality. And the deep tragic irony of
00:22:34.500 --> 00:22:36.720
Runyon's life is that while the military apparatus
00:22:36.720 --> 00:22:39.240
was exceptionally good at documenting his battlefield
00:22:39.240 --> 00:22:42.160
heroism in these clean, sterile terms, they left
00:22:42.160 --> 00:22:44.339
the remainder of his life completely unrecorded
00:22:44.339 --> 00:22:47.079
and unsupported. Because surviving October 9th
00:22:47.079 --> 00:22:49.039
was just the beginning of Runyon's battles. And
00:22:49.039 --> 00:22:50.700
the ones that followed in peacetime were far
00:22:50.700 --> 00:22:52.680
darker and far more destructive. Which brings
00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:55.019
us to a really heartbreaking pivot in his story.
00:22:55.180 --> 00:22:57.819
The post -war unraveling of Edgar Runyon, the
00:22:57.819 --> 00:22:59.799
war officially ends with the armistice on November
00:22:59.799 --> 00:23:03.480
11, 1918. The guns fall silent. He made it. He
00:23:03.480 --> 00:23:05.700
survived the machine gun bullet. He is a certified
00:23:05.700 --> 00:23:08.440
decorated national hero. But then, less than
00:23:08.440 --> 00:23:11.619
two weeks later, on November 24, something completely
00:23:11.619 --> 00:23:15.079
inexplicable happens. The file states, Runyon's
00:23:15.079 --> 00:23:17.440
life is one mystery after another. including
00:23:17.440 --> 00:23:20.180
how or why he was busted back to private on November
00:23:20.180 --> 00:23:23.880
24th, 1918 after the war ended. How does this
00:23:23.880 --> 00:23:26.440
even happen? You have a guy who literally just
00:23:26.440 --> 00:23:28.940
earned the Distinguished Service Cross, one of
00:23:28.940 --> 00:23:31.099
the nation's highest honors, for taking a bullet
00:23:31.099 --> 00:23:33.720
to the head to save his unit. The war is over.
00:23:33.940 --> 00:23:35.880
They aren't in combat anymore. No, they're not.
00:23:36.009 --> 00:23:38.569
How does a hero get busted back to the lowest
00:23:38.569 --> 00:23:41.869
possible rank of private just 13 days after the
00:23:41.869 --> 00:23:44.349
armistice? Well, a demotion of that magnitude
00:23:44.349 --> 00:23:47.609
is not a simple clerical error. That is a severe
00:23:47.609 --> 00:23:50.369
disciplinary punishment. So what did he do? We
00:23:50.369 --> 00:23:52.250
have to look deeper into the shadows of the text
00:23:52.250 --> 00:23:55.250
to understand why. Why would a seasoned, deeply
00:23:55.250 --> 00:23:58.259
disciplined veteran A man who chased Pancho Ville
00:23:58.259 --> 00:24:00.980
without incident, who held the line at Soissons
00:24:00.980 --> 00:24:03.480
and Saint -Michel, suddenly faced disciplinary
00:24:03.480 --> 00:24:06.079
action severe enough to strip his rank. You have
00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:08.039
to look at what he brought out of that ravine
00:24:08.039 --> 00:24:11.299
with him. Precisely. Remember the specific nature
00:24:11.299 --> 00:24:14.039
of his injury. A machine gun bullet to the head.
00:24:15.120 --> 00:24:18.220
Today, modern medicine has a much deeper, more
00:24:18.220 --> 00:24:20.839
nuanced understanding of traumatic brain injuries,
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:24.180
TBI. Which didn't exist as a diagnosis in 1918.
00:24:24.339 --> 00:24:27.599
Not at all. We know now that severe concussive
00:24:27.599 --> 00:24:29.920
force or structural damage to the frontal lobe
00:24:29.920 --> 00:24:32.859
can cause drastic, uncontrollable behavioral
00:24:32.859 --> 00:24:34.900
changes. Like what kind of changes? It leads
00:24:34.900 --> 00:24:37.480
to severe impulsivity, aggression, inability
00:24:37.480 --> 00:24:40.119
to follow complex instructions, and a complete
00:24:40.119 --> 00:24:42.579
loss of emotional regulation. Wow, so he could
00:24:42.579 --> 00:24:44.599
have just been acting out and completely unable
00:24:44.599 --> 00:24:47.079
to control it. Furthermore, consider the invisible
00:24:47.079 --> 00:24:50.019
psychological wounds. He survived the gas -filled
00:24:50.019 --> 00:24:52.500
ravines, the suffocating mud, and watching every
00:24:52.500 --> 00:24:54.759
single sergeant in his unit get violently killed
00:24:54.759 --> 00:24:56.779
in front of him. Today we would immediately recognize
00:24:56.779 --> 00:24:58.799
that as profound post -traumatic stress disorder.
00:24:58.880 --> 00:25:02.000
But the military apparatus of 1918 lacked the
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:04.640
medical or psychological framework to diagnose
00:25:04.640 --> 00:25:08.180
TBI or PTSD. Back then, it was colloquially called
00:25:08.180 --> 00:25:10.359
shell shock, and it was very poorly understood.
00:25:10.579 --> 00:25:13.309
So they just saw a behavioral issue. Right. Often,
00:25:13.650 --> 00:25:15.410
military officers view the symptoms of shell
00:25:15.410 --> 00:25:18.329
shock or brain trauma, such as insubordination,
00:25:18.609 --> 00:25:21.250
aggression, or an inability to maintain military
00:25:21.250 --> 00:25:24.349
bearing, not as a medical crisis requiring care,
00:25:24.569 --> 00:25:27.130
but as a disciplinary issue requiring punishment.
00:25:27.450 --> 00:25:29.650
So if you read between the lines, it is highly
00:25:29.650 --> 00:25:31.890
probable that the discipline problems that got
00:25:31.890 --> 00:25:34.430
him demoted weren't malicious insubordination.
00:25:34.490 --> 00:25:37.309
They were the unavoidable symptoms of a severe
00:25:37.309 --> 00:25:40.089
physical brain injury and profound psychological
00:25:40.089 --> 00:25:42.170
trauma that the Army just didn't know how to
00:25:42.170 --> 00:25:45.140
handle. handle. Exactly. The military meticulously
00:25:45.140 --> 00:25:47.279
recorded his acts of violence against the enemy
00:25:47.279 --> 00:25:50.000
in his award citations, but they treated his
00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:52.579
personal suffering as a disciplinarian fraction,
00:25:53.019 --> 00:25:55.460
leaving it as an unrecorded mystery. And if we
00:25:55.460 --> 00:25:57.420
trace the rest of his timeline provided in the
00:25:57.420 --> 00:25:59.960
file, it strongly supports this theory of a man
00:25:59.960 --> 00:26:02.220
who was profoundly and permanently broken by
00:26:02.220 --> 00:26:04.460
his service. The post -war timeline is a very
00:26:04.460 --> 00:26:06.779
rough ride. He returns home to the US on June
00:26:06.779 --> 00:26:11.210
14, 1919. Strangely, Despite being demoted, he
00:26:11.210 --> 00:26:13.529
immediately re -enlists again and they eventually
00:26:13.529 --> 00:26:15.470
promote him back to private first class in November.
00:26:15.789 --> 00:26:18.329
Which demonstrates how deeply he was clinging
00:26:18.329 --> 00:26:21.230
to the structure of the military. It was the
00:26:21.230 --> 00:26:23.250
only world he knew, the only place that made
00:26:23.250 --> 00:26:26.299
sense, even if it had punished him. Right. And
00:26:26.299 --> 00:26:28.680
he is trying to have a personal life, too. The
00:26:28.680 --> 00:26:31.140
text notes he had married Myrtle R. Durham earlier
00:26:31.140 --> 00:26:33.480
in December 1917, back when he was stationed
00:26:33.480 --> 00:26:35.539
to Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville. Before
00:26:35.539 --> 00:26:38.559
she even deployed. Yeah. And after his final
00:26:38.559 --> 00:26:41.099
discharge, they moved to Montana. They have a
00:26:41.099 --> 00:26:44.319
daughter, Edna, in 1924. Then they moved back
00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:46.480
to Boise, Idaho, where he had lived before the
00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:49.519
war. On paper, if you just look at the data points,
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:51.740
it looks like he is trying to build a normal
00:26:51.740 --> 00:26:54.619
American civilian life. But the shadow cast by
00:26:54.619 --> 00:26:57.420
Exermont is simply too long. Because then we
00:26:57.420 --> 00:27:00.599
hit the 1930s. The text reveals that from 1930
00:27:00.599 --> 00:27:04.180
to 1940, Edgar was in and out of the Veterans
00:27:04.180 --> 00:27:07.039
Hospital in Boise. Think about that. An entire
00:27:07.039 --> 00:27:09.819
decade of his life, essentially his late 30s
00:27:09.819 --> 00:27:12.759
and 40s, defined by institutionalization and
00:27:12.759 --> 00:27:15.160
hospitalization. Which points directly back to
00:27:15.160 --> 00:27:17.630
the lingering trauma of October 9th. Whether
00:27:17.630 --> 00:27:20.109
he was suffering from the degenerative neurological
00:27:20.109 --> 00:27:23.309
effects of the head wound, severe chronic respiratory
00:27:23.309 --> 00:27:25.829
issues from breathing mustard gas in the ravines,
00:27:26.309 --> 00:27:28.910
or profound psychological collapse, he reached
00:27:28.910 --> 00:27:31.589
a point where he was completely unable to function
00:27:31.589 --> 00:27:34.789
outside of constant medical care. And the specific
00:27:34.789 --> 00:27:37.309
detail in the text that absolutely crushed me
00:27:37.309 --> 00:27:40.349
was about his marriage. The divorce in 1938.
00:27:40.410 --> 00:27:43.369
Yeah, in 1938, Edgar and Myrtle get divorced.
00:27:43.640 --> 00:27:46.700
The file quotes a local newspaper report detailing
00:27:46.700 --> 00:27:49.339
the divorce proceedings. The paper reported,
00:27:49.940 --> 00:27:51.920
because the plaintiff was confined in a Boise
00:27:51.920 --> 00:27:54.819
hospital, testimony had to be taken there. That
00:27:54.819 --> 00:27:57.559
one sentence paints a staggeringly grim picture
00:27:57.559 --> 00:27:59.480
of his physical and mental state. He couldn't
00:27:59.480 --> 00:28:01.720
even go to a courthouse. He wasn't just visiting
00:28:01.720 --> 00:28:04.059
the VA hospital for checkups. He was confined
00:28:04.059 --> 00:28:07.019
there. He was so deeply incapacitated that the
00:28:07.019 --> 00:28:09.640
legal machinery of the civilian world had to
00:28:09.640 --> 00:28:12.059
physically move into his hospital room just to
00:28:12.059 --> 00:28:14.359
dissolve his marriage. Try to visualize that
00:28:14.359 --> 00:28:17.259
contrast. The sterile smell of the hospital ward,
00:28:17.799 --> 00:28:19.859
the lawyer standing awkwardly at the foot of
00:28:19.859 --> 00:28:22.960
his metal bed asking questions to a man who 20
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:25.920
years earlier was charging up a French hillside
00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:28.160
with a hole in his head screaming orders to save
00:28:28.160 --> 00:28:30.900
his men. It's just devastating. He spent his
00:28:30.900 --> 00:28:33.980
final years completely institutionalized. The
00:28:33.980 --> 00:28:37.000
text concludes his story by stating he died at
00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:41.490
that same VA hospital in Boise. on June 12th,
00:28:41.549 --> 00:28:44.650
1940. He was only 49 years old. You didn't even
00:28:44.650 --> 00:28:47.029
make it to 50. It is the ultimate tragedy of
00:28:47.029 --> 00:28:49.450
the weary veteran. Here is a man who gave his
00:28:49.450 --> 00:28:51.750
youth to the blistering deserts hunting Pancho
00:28:51.750 --> 00:28:54.130
Villa, who gave his physical health and his mind
00:28:54.130 --> 00:28:57.230
to the toxic mud of Exermont, and who spent the
00:28:57.230 --> 00:28:59.569
entire remainder of his abbreviated life paying
00:28:59.569 --> 00:29:01.890
the toll for that heroism. It's an incredibly
00:29:01.890 --> 00:29:04.529
heavy story. It is. But here is where the historical
00:29:04.529 --> 00:29:07.349
file takes a massive, almost whiplash inducing
00:29:07.349 --> 00:29:10.279
pivot. Because while Runyon was a hardened veteran
00:29:10.279 --> 00:29:12.880
broken by the aftermath of war, the very next
00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:15.480
day on that exact same battlefield, a completely
00:29:15.480 --> 00:29:17.400
different type of soldier from the exact same
00:29:17.400 --> 00:29:20.559
company stepped into history. And his story starts
00:29:20.559 --> 00:29:23.220
in a completely different universe. We are moving
00:29:23.220 --> 00:29:26.200
from a seasoned, world -weary professional soldier
00:29:26.200 --> 00:29:29.720
to a literal child. We are introducing Norman
00:29:29.720 --> 00:29:32.680
P. Nelson. If Runyon's life is a grim tragedy,
00:29:33.200 --> 00:29:35.720
Nelson's early life reads like an outlandish
00:29:35.720 --> 00:29:38.160
teen adventure novel. Let's look at his background.
00:29:38.500 --> 00:29:40.799
Norman Presley Nelson was born in Thistle, Utah,
00:29:41.039 --> 00:29:45.299
on January 25, 1900. He is the sixth of 10 children.
00:29:45.859 --> 00:29:48.200
He grew up in what the text identifies as the
00:29:48.200 --> 00:29:51.519
sixth ward of Provo, Utah. The source file includes
00:29:51.519 --> 00:29:53.859
a very specific and interesting cultural note
00:29:53.859 --> 00:29:56.740
here to provide context. It explains that in
00:29:56.740 --> 00:29:58.779
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints,
00:29:59.299 --> 00:30:02.359
a ward is a geographical boundary where residents
00:30:02.359 --> 00:30:04.380
didn't just casually wave to each other. They
00:30:04.380 --> 00:30:06.059
were deeply involved in each other's lives, right?
00:30:06.079 --> 00:30:08.539
Very much so. They socialized intimately, went
00:30:08.539 --> 00:30:10.559
to church together, and served heavily alongside
00:30:10.559 --> 00:30:12.339
neighbors who lived on the same block. So he
00:30:12.339 --> 00:30:14.819
is coming from this incredibly tight -knit, highly
00:30:14.819 --> 00:30:18.119
structured, deeply religious, and family -oriented
00:30:18.119 --> 00:30:21.000
community. You know everybody's business, everybody
00:30:21.000 --> 00:30:23.880
knows yours, and you are constantly surrounded
00:30:23.880 --> 00:30:26.500
by your nine siblings. But Norman clearly had
00:30:26.500 --> 00:30:29.140
a restless independence streak. Because in December
00:30:29.140 --> 00:30:31.940
1916, at the tender age of 16, he decides he
00:30:31.940 --> 00:30:34.299
wants to leave it all behind and go to war. To
00:30:34.299 --> 00:30:36.829
appreciate the contrast. Think about the timelines.
00:30:37.029 --> 00:30:39.509
When Edgar Runyon was in the scorching Mexican
00:30:39.509 --> 00:30:42.430
desert actively hunting Pancho Villa in 1916
00:30:42.430 --> 00:30:45.890
as an armed cavalryman, Norman Nelson was a 16
00:30:45.890 --> 00:30:48.710
year old kid sitting in a church pew in Provo,
00:30:48.750 --> 00:30:51.529
Utah, surrounded by his siblings. And he decides
00:30:51.529 --> 00:30:54.220
to hatch an incredibly elaborate plan. Because
00:30:54.220 --> 00:30:56.779
he knows full well, his parents and provo are
00:30:56.779 --> 00:30:58.420
never going to sign permission slips for their
00:30:58.420 --> 00:31:01.420
16 year old son to go join the army. So the text
00:31:01.420 --> 00:31:03.779
details how he travels up to Salt Lake City to
00:31:03.779 --> 00:31:07.519
enlist and he creates an entire legally binding
00:31:07.519 --> 00:31:10.000
alias. He signs up under the name George Norman.
00:31:10.160 --> 00:31:12.079
He essentially flips his first and middle names
00:31:12.079 --> 00:31:14.700
to create a plausible pseudonym. Exactly. George
00:31:14.700 --> 00:31:17.119
Norman. He lies on federal documents about his
00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:20.140
age, claiming to be an adult. And to completely
00:31:20.140 --> 00:31:22.140
throw his parents off the scent if the military
00:31:22.140 --> 00:31:24.680
ever came looking, he lists his home of record
00:31:24.680 --> 00:31:28.200
not as Provo, but as Green River, Utah. Now,
00:31:28.500 --> 00:31:30.279
Green River is on the other side of the state.
00:31:30.519 --> 00:31:33.500
He is deliberately creating a false geographic
00:31:33.500 --> 00:31:36.160
paper trail that points completely away from
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:38.279
his actual family and his tight -knit community.
00:31:38.500 --> 00:31:41.220
It's a remarkably thorough deception for a teenager
00:31:41.220 --> 00:31:44.569
to orchestrate in 1916. I find this fascinating.
00:31:44.730 --> 00:31:46.690
Think about teenagers today or even when you
00:31:46.690 --> 00:31:49.650
were that age. If a 16 year old goes to the immense
00:31:49.650 --> 00:31:52.269
trouble of getting a fake ID and memorizing a
00:31:52.269 --> 00:31:54.829
fake address, they're usually doing it to buy
00:31:54.829 --> 00:31:57.410
beer at a convenience store or get into a club.
00:31:57.730 --> 00:32:00.029
This kid used a fake name and a fake hometown
00:32:00.029 --> 00:32:03.509
to sneak his way into one of the deadliest, most
00:32:03.509 --> 00:32:06.349
industrialized conflicts in human history. The
00:32:06.349 --> 00:32:08.769
sheer audacity of his plan is staggering. He
00:32:08.769 --> 00:32:11.730
is navigating federal bureaucracy as a ghost.
00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:15.220
But as often happens with 16 -year -old masterminds,
00:32:15.400 --> 00:32:18.400
his grand plan hits a very practical, unavoidable
00:32:18.400 --> 00:32:21.380
snag. A biological snag, actually. He ships out
00:32:21.380 --> 00:32:23.660
for basic training at Camp Kearney in California.
00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:25.599
He thinks he's gotten away with it. He's a soldier
00:32:25.599 --> 00:32:29.180
now. But in April 1917, his own body betrays
00:32:29.180 --> 00:32:31.819
his elaborate lie. He comes down with appendicitis.
00:32:31.960 --> 00:32:34.460
The file notes he underwent an emergency appendectomy
00:32:34.460 --> 00:32:37.660
at the camp in California. And here is the reality
00:32:37.660 --> 00:32:40.829
of military bureaucracy. You can't exactly keep
00:32:40.829 --> 00:32:43.190
emergency abdominal surgery a secret from your
00:32:43.190 --> 00:32:45.710
family. No, you really can't. The tech says this
00:32:45.710 --> 00:32:48.130
is when the cat was out of the bag with his parents.
00:32:48.569 --> 00:32:51.089
The army had protocols, they had to notify his
00:32:51.089 --> 00:32:54.130
next of kin about a major life -threatening surgery,
00:32:54.509 --> 00:32:57.069
and boom, the jig is entirely up. His parents
00:32:57.069 --> 00:32:59.069
find out exactly where he is and what he has
00:32:59.069 --> 00:33:01.690
done. He actually has to return home to Provo
00:33:01.690 --> 00:33:04.950
on medical leave to recover in May. Just imagine
00:33:04.950 --> 00:33:07.769
the intense awkwardness of that homecoming. The
00:33:07.769 --> 00:33:10.509
runaway son returning from California, recovering
00:33:10.509 --> 00:33:12.769
from abdominal surgery, having to face strict
00:33:12.769 --> 00:33:14.890
parents who just found out he joined the U .S.
00:33:14.930 --> 00:33:17.190
Army under a fake name to go fight in a global
00:33:17.190 --> 00:33:19.049
conflict. Oh, the grounding must have been of
00:33:19.049 --> 00:33:21.789
biblical proportion. Seriously. But the reality
00:33:21.789 --> 00:33:24.089
was the military had his signed enlistment papers.
00:33:24.390 --> 00:33:27.009
He was legally property of the U .S. Army, regardless
00:33:27.009 --> 00:33:30.730
of the alias. So by June, fully recovered, he
00:33:30.730 --> 00:33:33.109
shipped out to France. And here we find another
00:33:33.109 --> 00:33:35.970
echo of our earlier textual quirk. The source
00:33:35.970 --> 00:33:38.410
again states he shipped out for France in June,
00:33:38.789 --> 00:33:41.289
returning to that confusing timeline issue of
00:33:41.289 --> 00:33:43.190
the First Division arriving in June but fighting
00:33:43.190 --> 00:33:46.029
in May. But regardless of the exact calendar
00:33:46.029 --> 00:33:49.170
date of his transport ship, this young kid, still
00:33:49.170 --> 00:33:51.250
operating officially under the alias George Norman,
00:33:51.880 --> 00:33:55.180
finds himself plunged into the brutal reality
00:33:55.180 --> 00:33:57.740
of war. Which places the teenage alias right
00:33:57.740 --> 00:34:00.160
on the front line. And we find ourselves right
00:34:00.160 --> 00:34:03.119
back in the muddy, gas -filled nightmare ravines
00:34:03.119 --> 00:34:06.500
of Exremont. It is October 10th, 1918. The exact
00:34:06.500 --> 00:34:08.760
day after Corporal Edgar Runyon took a machine
00:34:08.760 --> 00:34:11.099
gun bullet to the head, saving his platoon. I
00:34:11.099 --> 00:34:12.940
kept looking at these two dates in the file.
00:34:13.260 --> 00:34:15.840
What are the statistical odds you have two guys
00:34:15.840 --> 00:34:18.059
from the exact same company fighting on back
00:34:18.059 --> 00:34:20.079
-to -back days and both of them end up executing
00:34:20.079 --> 00:34:22.119
actions that win the Distinguished Service Cross?
00:34:22.440 --> 00:34:25.300
Was there some unique culture of bravery in Company
00:34:25.300 --> 00:34:28.099
A or is this just what the horrific reality of
00:34:28.099 --> 00:34:30.579
that specific tactical situation demanded? It
00:34:30.579 --> 00:34:33.079
is deeply tied to the momentum and tactical reality
00:34:33.079 --> 00:34:35.659
of a stalled offensive. When we break down a
00:34:35.659 --> 00:34:37.940
battle like Extermont, we see how individual
00:34:37.940 --> 00:34:40.739
bravery creates a necessary cascading effect
00:34:40.739 --> 00:34:44.320
within a single unit. On October 9th, the platoon's
00:34:44.320 --> 00:34:46.500
leadership was entirely decapitated when the
00:34:46.500 --> 00:34:49.219
NCOs fell. Right, and Runyon, through sheer grit
00:34:49.219 --> 00:34:51.900
and despite a massive head wound, kept the platoon
00:34:51.900 --> 00:34:54.860
from disintegrating. He held the line. He kept
00:34:54.860 --> 00:34:57.099
them from being routed and slaughtered. But they
00:34:57.099 --> 00:34:59.179
were still pinned down. They survived the 9th,
00:34:59.179 --> 00:35:01.579
but they hadn't won the objective. Precisely.
00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:04.360
They were alive, but the enemy was still heavily
00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:06.800
fortified in front of them, pouring fire into
00:35:06.800 --> 00:35:09.519
the ravine. The tactical deadlock wasn't broken.
00:35:09.789 --> 00:35:12.289
So the next morning, the sun comes up on October
00:35:12.289 --> 00:35:15.030
10th. The surviving men of the platoon are still
00:35:15.030 --> 00:35:17.530
held up by devastating machine gun fire from
00:35:17.530 --> 00:35:19.809
the front. The situation is desperate. They cannot
00:35:19.809 --> 00:35:22.289
stay in the gas -filled low ground, but moving
00:35:22.289 --> 00:35:25.289
forward seems like suicide. And this is the moment
00:35:25.289 --> 00:35:27.849
when Corporal Nelson, a 16 -year -old kid still
00:35:27.849 --> 00:35:30.829
legally existing on paper, as George Norman decides
00:35:30.829 --> 00:35:33.409
to act. The text details that Corporal Nelson,
00:35:33.789 --> 00:35:36.130
alongside Private First Class Gottlieb Luzzo,
00:35:36.269 --> 00:35:38.650
Let's note that geographical detail the file
00:35:38.650 --> 00:35:41.710
mentions Luzzo is from Chicago, Illinois. Right.
00:35:41.710 --> 00:35:44.110
So you have this farm kid from a tight religious
00:35:44.110 --> 00:35:47.190
ward in Utah operating under a fake identity,
00:35:47.210 --> 00:35:49.530
teaming up with a city kid from the streets of
00:35:49.530 --> 00:35:52.650
Chicago. And the text says they advanced in front
00:35:52.650 --> 00:35:54.949
of the fighting and captured an enemy machine
00:35:54.949 --> 00:35:57.989
gun nest and its crew. We need to really visualize
00:35:57.989 --> 00:36:00.929
the tactical space to understand the magnitude
00:36:00.929 --> 00:36:04.070
of the heroism here. The text explicitly says
00:36:04.070 --> 00:36:05.920
they advanced in front of the line. The rest
00:36:05.920 --> 00:36:08.239
of the platoon is pinned down, taking cover in
00:36:08.239 --> 00:36:11.139
the mud, likely still absolutely terrified and
00:36:11.139 --> 00:36:13.079
traumatized from seeing their sergeants killed
00:36:13.079 --> 00:36:15.000
and Corporal Runyon shot in the head the day
00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:17.679
prior. The psychological block there is massive.
00:36:18.219 --> 00:36:20.320
Nelson saw what happened to Runyon just hours
00:36:20.320 --> 00:36:23.980
earlier. He knows exactly viscerally what that
00:36:23.980 --> 00:36:26.380
machine gun can do to a human head. He knows
00:36:26.380 --> 00:36:28.800
what happens if he stands up. And yet, defying
00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:31.210
every instinct of self -preservation, He and
00:36:31.210 --> 00:36:33.750
Luzal climb out of whatever muddy shell hole
00:36:33.750 --> 00:36:35.829
or ravine they are hiding in and they move out
00:36:35.829 --> 00:36:38.130
into the open ground. They advance directly into
00:36:38.130 --> 00:36:40.929
the active field of fire of an entrenched weapon.
00:36:41.150 --> 00:36:44.530
Two men on foot, in the mud, charging a fortified
00:36:44.530 --> 00:36:47.110
position that had successfully pinned down an
00:36:47.110 --> 00:36:49.250
entire infantry company. And they don't just
00:36:49.250 --> 00:36:51.329
throw a grenade and destroy it. The tech says
00:36:51.329 --> 00:36:53.869
they captured the nest and its crew. Two guys
00:36:53.869 --> 00:36:56.230
outmaneuvered and took out a squad of entrenched
00:36:56.230 --> 00:36:59.590
gunners. And because they did that, the file
00:36:59.590 --> 00:37:02.909
notes. Their action enabled his platoon to continue
00:37:02.909 --> 00:37:05.489
the advance. They broke the deadlock that Runyon
00:37:05.489 --> 00:37:08.369
had bled to maintain. For this astonishing action,
00:37:08.769 --> 00:37:11.809
both Nelson and Luzau are awarded the Distinguished
00:37:11.809 --> 00:37:14.889
Service Cross. The source provides Nelson's citation,
00:37:15.210 --> 00:37:17.889
which completely mirrors the bureaucratic, detached
00:37:17.889 --> 00:37:20.429
language of Runyon's award. It awards the medal
00:37:20.429 --> 00:37:23.530
to Corporal George Nelson, with the text adding
00:37:23.530 --> 00:37:26.929
an A .K .A. Norman Presley Nelson for historical
00:37:26.929 --> 00:37:29.239
clarification. The citation lists his serial
00:37:29.239 --> 00:37:33.199
number as 45882, and it's so wild to think about
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:35.360
how the historical record processes this. The
00:37:35.360 --> 00:37:37.840
text explicitly points out that there was no
00:37:37.840 --> 00:37:40.159
record of Norman Presley Nelson serving in uniform,
00:37:40.579 --> 00:37:42.760
and only a few know they were both the same man.
00:37:43.099 --> 00:37:45.599
It is a profound concept when you consider the
00:37:45.599 --> 00:37:48.699
legal and historical implications. The United
00:37:48.699 --> 00:37:51.300
States government, authorized by an act of Congress,
00:37:51.780 --> 00:37:54.420
awarded one of its absolute highest military
00:37:54.420 --> 00:37:58.139
honors to a ghost. To a legal entity that did
00:37:58.139 --> 00:38:01.920
not exist. Exactly. The extraordinary heroism
00:38:01.920 --> 00:38:05.000
was meticulously recorded, but the true identity
00:38:05.000 --> 00:38:07.579
of the 16 -year -old runaway from Provo was buried
00:38:07.579 --> 00:38:10.119
completely behind an alias. It's an incredible
00:38:10.119 --> 00:38:13.639
story of deception paying off in valor. And the
00:38:13.639 --> 00:38:15.920
text notes that Nelson was actually wounded twice
00:38:15.920 --> 00:38:18.039
during the duration of the war, though it doesn't
00:38:18.039 --> 00:38:19.940
specify if it was during this specific charge
00:38:19.940 --> 00:38:22.739
on the 10th or at another time. But the key takeaway
00:38:22.739 --> 00:38:25.079
is that he survives, which brings us to the final
00:38:25.079 --> 00:38:27.380
act of his story and the massive glare and contrast
00:38:27.380 --> 00:38:30.519
with Edgar Runyon. Indeed. While Runyon's post
00:38:30.519 --> 00:38:33.260
-war life was entirely defined by institutionalization,
00:38:33.679 --> 00:38:36.119
hospitals, and rapid physical deterioration,
00:38:36.440 --> 00:38:39.880
Nelson's trajectory is remarkably almost miraculously
00:38:39.880 --> 00:38:42.400
different. Let's trace his post -war timeline.
00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:45.159
Nelson doesn't suffer unexplained emotions. He
00:38:45.159 --> 00:38:46.940
stays with his company, fighting through the
00:38:46.940 --> 00:38:49.000
horrors of the Argonne until the armistice is
00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:51.659
signed on November 11. He does a few months of
00:38:51.659 --> 00:38:53.699
occupation duty in Europe, which was standard
00:38:53.699 --> 00:38:56.460
practice, returns on a ship to Hoboken, New Jersey
00:38:56.460 --> 00:38:59.420
in August 1919, and then finally arrives back
00:38:59.420 --> 00:39:02.199
home in Provo. Back to the strict sixth ward
00:39:02.199 --> 00:39:04.840
where his elaborate deception began. And what
00:39:04.840 --> 00:39:07.000
does he do with the rest of his life? He finds
00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:11.349
incredible enduring stability. The text tells
00:39:11.349 --> 00:39:14.010
us he gets a civilian job with the Orham branch
00:39:14.010 --> 00:39:16.090
of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad.
00:39:16.230 --> 00:39:18.090
And he doesn't just work there for a little bit
00:39:18.090 --> 00:39:21.010
before moving on. He works as a conductor for
00:39:21.010 --> 00:39:23.369
45 years. Four and a half decades riding the
00:39:23.369 --> 00:39:25.889
rails. This raises a profoundly important question,
00:39:25.969 --> 00:39:28.510
one that the historical file doesn't explicitly
00:39:28.510 --> 00:39:31.110
answer, but one that the facts force us to ponder.
00:39:31.349 --> 00:39:34.070
What's that? How does a 16 -year -old kid who
00:39:34.070 --> 00:39:36.130
lied to his parents, ran away from home, got
00:39:36.130 --> 00:39:38.730
wounded twice, and charged an active machine
00:39:38.730 --> 00:39:41.809
gun nest in a gas -filled valley of death? How
00:39:41.809 --> 00:39:44.349
does he internally process that immense trauma
00:39:44.349 --> 00:39:47.190
and successfully transition into being a suburban
00:39:47.190 --> 00:39:49.809
train conductor for half a century? It's the
00:39:49.809 --> 00:39:51.510
ultimate mystery of human resilience, isn't it?
00:39:51.570 --> 00:39:54.090
It really is. If you put yourself in their shoes,
00:39:54.730 --> 00:39:57.170
you see two completely different reactions to
00:39:57.170 --> 00:40:00.420
the exact same trauma. Some men, like the seasoned
00:40:00.420 --> 00:40:03.320
veteran Runyon, have their minds and bodies shattered
00:40:03.320 --> 00:40:06.000
by it. And others, like the teenage kid Nelson,
00:40:06.420 --> 00:40:08.940
somehow find a way to pack the horror away into
00:40:08.940 --> 00:40:11.840
a psychological box, put on a conductor's hat,
00:40:12.219 --> 00:40:14.320
and calmly punch train tickets for the rest of
00:40:14.320 --> 00:40:16.880
their natural lives. It speaks to the deeply
00:40:16.880 --> 00:40:18.900
unpredictable nature of trauma and recovery.
00:40:19.210 --> 00:40:21.929
There is no formula. Nelson built a completely
00:40:21.929 --> 00:40:24.809
full, seemingly peaceful life. He really did.
00:40:25.250 --> 00:40:27.489
The source notes he married Miss Leona Wilkinson
00:40:27.489 --> 00:40:30.849
on April 14th, 1926. Over the next few years,
00:40:30.889 --> 00:40:34.530
between 1927 and 1932, they have three children.
00:40:34.670 --> 00:40:36.650
He becomes a father, a husband, a long -time
00:40:36.650 --> 00:40:39.090
reliable employee. He builds a legacy that has
00:40:39.090 --> 00:40:40.969
nothing to do with war. And he lives a very long
00:40:40.969 --> 00:40:43.550
life. He does. Which leads to the final beautiful
00:40:43.550 --> 00:40:46.050
piece of irony in the source text. The file notes
00:40:46.050 --> 00:40:49.309
his death on February 20th, 1982. He lived to
00:40:49.309 --> 00:40:51.670
be 81 years old. But the way the author of the
00:40:51.670 --> 00:40:54.269
file phrases his passing is so clever, almost
00:40:54.269 --> 00:40:57.449
poetic in its framing. They write, in a twist
00:40:57.449 --> 00:41:00.869
of irony, George Nelson and Norman Presley Nelson
00:41:00.869 --> 00:41:03.750
died on the same day. Both were buried at Salt
00:41:03.750 --> 00:41:06.670
Lake City Cemetery. It is a brilliant, evocative
00:41:06.670 --> 00:41:09.349
way to phrase it. The death of the alias alongside
00:41:09.349 --> 00:41:12.150
the death of the man. For 81 years, he carried
00:41:12.150 --> 00:41:15.199
this heavy dual identity. He was the quiet family
00:41:15.199 --> 00:41:17.960
man and railroad conductor in Provo, and he was
00:41:17.960 --> 00:41:21.219
the ghostly war hero George Nelson from Green
00:41:21.219 --> 00:41:23.500
River, who lived only in the Federal Military
00:41:23.500 --> 00:41:27.519
Archives. On that cold day in 1982, both of those
00:41:27.519 --> 00:41:29.579
identities were finally laid to rest together
00:41:29.579 --> 00:41:32.219
in the exact same grave. It's an image that really
00:41:32.219 --> 00:41:34.719
sticks with you. To think about all that complex
00:41:34.719 --> 00:41:37.380
history, all that deception and heroism packed
00:41:37.380 --> 00:41:39.929
into one burial plot in Salt Lake City. As we
00:41:39.929 --> 00:41:42.610
step back from the specific details of October
00:41:42.610 --> 00:41:45.210
9th and 10th and look at the broader legacy of
00:41:45.210 --> 00:41:47.690
these two men, the parallel tracks of their lives
00:41:47.690 --> 00:41:50.369
are simply astounding to contemplate. Let's summarize
00:41:50.369 --> 00:41:52.610
it, because when you lay the facts out side by
00:41:52.610 --> 00:41:54.769
side, it really does sound like a work of fiction.
00:41:54.989 --> 00:41:58.329
You have two vastly different men. One is a seasoned,
00:41:58.570 --> 00:42:01.269
world traveling, professional military veteran.
00:42:01.570 --> 00:42:04.989
And the other is a teenage runaway from a tight
00:42:04.989 --> 00:42:06.889
knit religious neighborhood who shouldn't even
00:42:06.889 --> 00:42:09.570
be in uniform. They end up in the exact same
00:42:09.570 --> 00:42:12.590
infantry company. They march into the exact same
00:42:12.590 --> 00:42:15.969
muddy, gas -filled, terrifying ravine in Exremont.
00:42:16.010 --> 00:42:18.309
They both face the absolute extremes of human
00:42:18.309 --> 00:42:21.070
terror and mechanical slaughter. And under that
00:42:21.070 --> 00:42:23.809
unimaginable pressure, both of them perform acts
00:42:23.809 --> 00:42:27.090
of incredibly selfless valor, just 24 hours apart.
00:42:27.210 --> 00:42:29.750
They both earn the Distinguished Service Cross
00:42:29.750 --> 00:42:32.190
by saving their fellow soldiers. And yet they
00:42:32.190 --> 00:42:35.070
emerge from that exact same crucible into vastly
00:42:35.070 --> 00:42:37.750
different fates. Runyon's life tragically unravels
00:42:37.750 --> 00:42:41.250
in VA hospitals, ending prematurely at 49. His
00:42:41.250 --> 00:42:43.469
marriage dissolved in a hospital room, his rank
00:42:43.469 --> 00:42:46.070
mysteriously stripped. While Nelson, the kid
00:42:46.070 --> 00:42:48.690
who started his journey with a lie, finds deep
00:42:48.690 --> 00:42:51.230
peace, returning to the mountains of Utah to
00:42:51.230 --> 00:42:53.510
build a family and ride the rails for decades.
00:42:53.800 --> 00:42:56.539
It emphasizes exactly why this kind of historical
00:42:56.539 --> 00:42:59.000
deep dive matters so much. If you just read the
00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:00.960
official timeline of World War I, the textbook
00:43:00.960 --> 00:43:05.909
version, you see clean dates. October 4, November
00:43:05.909 --> 00:43:08.409
11. Right, you see strategic troop movements,
00:43:08.610 --> 00:43:10.909
you see the macro level of history. The clean,
00:43:11.210 --> 00:43:14.510
authorized version. Exactly. But history is kept
00:43:14.510 --> 00:43:17.570
alive, truly alive, not just by memorizing the
00:43:17.570 --> 00:43:20.389
names of the Grand Offensives, but by unraveling
00:43:20.389 --> 00:43:22.909
the mysteries of the individuals who actually
00:43:22.909 --> 00:43:24.710
fought them in the mud. When you look at Edgar
00:43:24.710 --> 00:43:26.889
Runyon bleeding from the head to hold the line,
00:43:27.369 --> 00:43:29.789
or a 16 -year -old kid named George Norman charging
00:43:29.789 --> 00:43:32.809
a gun nest with a guy from Chicago. You realize
00:43:32.809 --> 00:43:35.590
that the Grand... sweeping machinery of history
00:43:35.590 --> 00:43:39.889
is entirely powered by frail, complicated, mysterious
00:43:39.889 --> 00:43:41.969
human beings. That brings us right back to that
00:43:41.969 --> 00:43:44.769
image we started with today. That stack of dusty,
00:43:44.769 --> 00:43:47.849
forgotten files in a dark archive. We spent this
00:43:47.849 --> 00:43:50.030
time looking at just two names from one company.
00:43:50.250 --> 00:43:52.590
But the Utah Mystery Heroes file we use today
00:43:52.590 --> 00:43:55.809
is just one tiny excerpt. A fraction of a fraction
00:43:55.809 --> 00:43:57.750
of this historical record. And it leaves me with
00:43:57.750 --> 00:43:59.949
this one final thought that I just can't shape.
00:43:59.969 --> 00:44:01.909
I want you to think about this as you go about
00:44:01.909 --> 00:44:05.190
the rest of your day. For every documented heroic
00:44:05.190 --> 00:44:07.849
act, like the ones that happened on October 9th
00:44:07.849 --> 00:44:10.530
and 10th in that French ravine, how many other
00:44:10.530 --> 00:44:12.230
ghosts are sitting in a filing cabinet right
00:44:12.230 --> 00:44:14.889
now? How many fake names, unexplained emotions,
00:44:15.429 --> 00:44:18.789
chosen hometowns, and silent, unrecorded tragedies
00:44:18.789 --> 00:44:21.190
are just waiting in the margins of history? Hoping
00:44:21.190 --> 00:44:23.170
someone will finally come along, brush off the
00:44:23.170 --> 00:44:25.590
dust, and read between the lines. An archive
00:44:25.590 --> 00:44:28.289
full of mysteries just waiting to be uncovered.
00:44:28.750 --> 00:44:31.030
Thank you so much for diving into these margins
00:44:31.030 --> 00:44:32.789
with us today. It's been an absolute privilege
00:44:32.789 --> 00:44:35.070
sharing the incredible, complicated stories of
00:44:35.070 --> 00:44:37.349
Edgar Runyon and Norman Nelson with you. Until
00:44:37.349 --> 00:44:39.909
next time, keep questioning the official record.
00:44:56.449 --> 00:44:59.949
or legalhelpforveterans .com on the web. You
00:44:59.949 --> 00:45:02.969
can follow Veterans Radio on Facebook and listen
00:45:02.969 --> 00:45:06.670
to its podcasts and Internet radio shows by visiting
00:45:06.670 --> 00:45:10.690
us at veteransradio .org. That's veteransradio
00:45:10.690 --> 00:45:15.090
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00:45:15.429 --> 00:45:18.190
the National Veterans Business Development Council,
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NVBDC .org, Legal Help for Veterans, A Veterans
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Disability Law Firm with a national practice
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before the VA can help you on your claims and
00:45:31.630 --> 00:45:36.050
your appeals. It can be reached at legalhelpforveterans
00:45:36.050 --> 00:45:42.329
.com or 1 -800 -693 -4800. We also want to thank
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our local sponsors. This would include the Charles
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S. Kettles chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of
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America, that's chapter 310, VFW Graf O 'Hara
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post 423, the American Legion Erwin Preskin post
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46 in Ann Arbor as well, the VA Ann Arbor Health
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Care System, and certainly the National Vietnam
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