The following is a reminiscence of EP Dudley long after the war was over:
November 11, 1918
The war ended November 11, 1918. On that afternoon I took a little stroll across the line at Sedan and met a couple of German officers who invited me down in their underground dugout for a toast to the Armistice. They said they had some good liquor and beer. However, I hesitated and decided I would prefer to remain on the surface. The war was over for me and I took no chances it might be prolonged under ground.
We sailed from Marseille late one night in the Italian Liner Belvedere, April 12, 1919, landed at Hoboken and reached Chicago in three trains on Mother’s Day 1919. The city gave us a great welcome as we were exclusively a Chicago regiment. We held a formal parade down Michigan Avenue before thousands of people; then the city gave us dinner in the large banquet room of the Congress Hotel at which two presidential candidates spoke to us, General Leonard Wood and Governor Frank Lowden.
We were then mustered out at Camp Grant at Rockford, Illinois. I returned to my job as Night Chief Dispatcher at La Junta, being gone exactly two years.
