The Dakota Cowboy Poetry Gathering is scheduled again for the Memorial Day weekend, May 24-25, in Medora, and I am getting ready to participate again. It must be a case of some hidden desire I have to get up in front of an audience and perform something I’ve written. Whatever the motivation is, I have enjoyed doing it. I’ve been in attendance several other years, too, but I do not remember hearing many presentations that relate to the memorial holiday. I thought I would set out to bring something to the event that was holiday related, and after searching about I finally stumbled onto something that I am developing.
My Grandpa Sandvig was a World War I veteran and fought in the bloodiest battle in U. S. history — The Battle of Meuse-Argonne. I knew from records that he was a member of the 91st Infantry Division, 362nd Regiment. A bit of research told me many of the men in it were cowboys from Wyoming and Montana, so it became known as the “Wild West Division.” One more bit of Western lore became attached to that outfit, too. They adopted as their battle cry, “Powder River, let ‘er buck” from a river running through those states, which was sometimes said to be a mile wide and one inch deep. At any rate, the cowboy connection has been made, and I am at work developing the idea.
A great resource I have acquired is the recently published book To Conquer Hell: The Meuse-Argonne, 1918. Numbers associated with this battle have boggled my mind. The 91st Division alone suffered 4,700 casualties in the short period of September 26-30. The whole affair was made more vivid in my mind after reading Grandpa’s September 26 journal entry in the blank leaves of the small Bible he carried: “6 in the morning. We started the drive about 20 K.M. west of Verdun and we were in 17 days...” Over one million American soldiers fought here on a 26 mile front suffering 120,000 casualties including 26,000 dead.
Yes, I have found the cowboy connection I wanted for the Poetry Gathering. I just hope I can do justice to it from the humble viewpoint I bring to it.
