Sooner Doughboys Write Home

Days before the armistice was signed ending World War I, Stratton D. Brooks, third president of the University of Oklahoma, sent a letter to every student, former student, and faculty member serving in the armed forces. He had a request: would each man write a letter in reply, describing his experiences and impressions during his wartime service? Dozens of them responded in late 1918 and early 1919. Now, more than a century later, historian David W. Levy has selected and annotated fifty-three of these letters. Sooner Doughboys Write Home is a richly detailed—and often poignant—record of what these young men thought about the war and what they witnessed firsthand.

As Levy explains in his thorough introduction, most of these young men, or “doughboys” as they were called, came from small Oklahoma towns and farms. Suddenly thrust into strange and often dangerous circumstances after the United States entered the war in 1917, they betray in their letters an appealing innocence of this wider world. For some of them, it is a world of dreary inactivity and boredom, punctuated by moments of breathtaking violence and danger. Others marvel at sights in Paris and in Germany. All the while, they keep a sharp eye out for their Sooner classmates from Norman, eager to share a quick drink or hurried chat. Although these Sooner doughboys, as Levy acknowledges, were not “ordinary,” given their privileged status as college students, they observed the war from the field and not from some more remote vantage point.

Drawing on his expertise as an American historian and his extensive knowledge of the university’s history, Levy identifies and explains in ample footnotes the numerous people and places mentioned by the letter writers. In so doing, he ties the experience of everyday Oklahomans to a global conflict that changed the course of history.