Old Soldiers

They have almost faded away, those young Americans who crouched once upon a time in the muddy trenches of France, braving machine-gun fire, artillery salvos and poison gas for what they were told would be the last war ever fought.

More than 2.1 million U.S. servicemen--doughboys, they were nicknamed--served in France and helped deliver the coup de grace to Germany and its allies in 1917 and 1918. To mark today’s 80th anniversary of the end of World War I, the French government has launched a search for all surviving members of the American Expeditionary Forces and others who served in France to award them this country’s highest medal, the Legion of Honor.

“We honor them with this decoration. But they honor us by accepting it,” said Guy Wildenstein, who is the chairman of the association of Americans who have already received the distinction.

It will be a bittersweet ceremonial: No more than 1,600 of the late Gen. John J. Pershing’s soldiers are alive today, according to an estimate from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Most are about 100 years old and are frail or in ill health.

Speed in locating them is vital because the Legion of Honor is not granted posthumously.

“It’s tough to find them,” said Bob Johnson of Veterans of World War I of U. S. A. He’s sent applications to several doughboys he located, but they haven’t written back. “How do you get the word out?”

Only a handful of the 110 World War I veterans in Los Angeles County had contacted the local French Consulate to apply, Vice Consul Yo-Jung Chen said. Some of those applicants will not be honored until a later date because of a paperwork logjam.

But the consulate plans to begin conferring the prized decoration, a white star suspended from a red ribbon, today, Veterans Day, which was created to mark the anniversary of the World War I armistice.

A French diplomat will pin the medals near the veterans’ hearts, grasp them by both shoulders, kiss them on both cheeks and say, “In the name of the president . . . I am naming you a chevalier of the Order of the Legion of Honor.”

William Zelnicker, who turned 100 on Oct. 13, is one Southern Californian looking forward to the moment. Other than Sunday visits from his sole surviving son, he says, he has nothing else to look forward to. During World War I, he stood in a trench and took a deep breath of poison gas.

It cost him a lung. The Army awarded him the Purple Heart and the Silver Star for bravery. Now, a machine helps him breathe at night. During the day, he spends hour after hour on a sagging bed at the Sepulveda Ambulatory and Nursing Center in North Hills.

With his drooping shoulders and a shock of white hair jutting upward like a plume of steam, it is hard to tell that Zelnicker was once a feisty youngster who enlisted in Providence, R.I., at age 17 and returned from France to happily work a job that paid $18 a week.

“It was a hard war,” he says simply.

Feelings of Pride and Anticipation

Six weeks ago, his 76-year-old son informed him that he was eligible for the Legion of Honor. “I felt very proud of the French government,” Zelnicker said, but his application was not processed in time for today’s ceremony.

When he does get pinned, it should be a moment of excitement and companionship after years of loneliness in the federally subsidized home. Ten years ago, Zelnicker’s wife, Anna, died. He now prays to God every day to take him so he can join her and another son lost in World War II.

Perhaps the best-known medal in the world, the Legion of Honor was created by Napoleon Bonaparte on May 19, 1802, to reward valor on the battlefield but also achievement in virtually all other fields of human endeavor.

Top U.S. soldiers, including Pershing, Dwight D. Eisenhower, William Westmoreland, H. Norman Schwarzkopf and Colin L. Powell, have ranked among the recipients. But the 550 living American “legionnaires” also include Apollo 11 astronaut Neil Armstrong, actor Gregory Peck, composer Quincy Jones, TV news legend Walter Cronkite, cosmetics tycoon Estee Lauder, singers Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli and former President Reagan.

In June, President Jacques Chirac, who as French head of state is also Grand Master of the Order of the Legion of Honor, wrote President Clinton to request U.S. assistance in finding all eligible World War I veterans still alive. Similar searches are underway in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Portugal and other countries that were allied with France.

In 1995 and 1996, two successive French presidential decrees awarded the medal to 2,250 French World War I veterans.

To be eligible, an American veteran must have served on French soil before Nov. 11, 1918, or aboard Navy warships or troop transports that docked in France. “All the people who went to France, including women working for the Red Cross or who were doctors,” will be considered, said Jean-Raphael Peytregnet, a spokesman for the French Embassy in Washington. Applicants must also affirm that they have never been convicted of a crime.

After the United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, Americans saw active service in battles now almost forgotten, like Argonne Forest, Belleau Wood and Saint-Mihiel; 53,513 of the doughboys paid the ultimate price.

An additional 63,195 Americans died of other causes, including an epidemic of Spanish influenza.

Historians say it was the U.S. entry into the “Great War” that tipped the balance. At the French Embassy in Washington, where a task force has been created to process applications, staff members are thrilled to honor the Americans who, in the words of a patriotic song of the period, made the trip “Over There.”

In August, Togo West Jr., secretary of Veterans Affairs, pledged to use “all available means” to help the French track down every doughboy still living. West sent a letter and application form to each of the 900 World War I veterans receiving VA benefits.

French Ambassador Will Join Ceremonies

So far, the French Embassy has received 300 applications and forwarded 250 to Paris for final approval. Today, Ambassador Francois Bujon de l’Estang will award two of the first medals himself, to former Sgt. James G. Dunton of Falls Church, Va., a former member of the Army Ambulance Corps who turned 99 on Tuesday, and Henry Mills, 103, a former private in the infantry from Wayne, W. Va. The two local vets confirmed for pinning today are Albert Willard, 101, of Sherman Oaks and Fred Roberts, 102, of Temple City.

Across the U.S., staff from 10 French consulates will deliver other medals, or deputize VA staff or American holders of the Legion of Honor. Americans were taught the appropriate protocol, including how to buss recipients on both cheeks.

For some, the ceremony may revive memories all but extinguished by the passing of time. Sitting in his wheelchair at the West Los Angeles Health Care Center run by the VA, James Caddell, 99, struggled to bring back the images of long-ago France.

“Yeah, it got scary when the bombs fell,” he said finally. “Yeah, I worried about dying.”

Caddell, a native of Utica, Miss., volunteered at age 17 and served with an all-black regiment, carrying heavy supplies to the front. “Some of them fought. Some of them died,” he said of his mates. “All we did was struggle.”

A ship took Caddell across the Atlantic--a big deal for a young man who had never seen an ocean, or an airplane, or a city like Paris. In 1918, he came home and joined Ringling Bros. Circus, performing odd jobs. When the circus came to Los Angeles, Caddell quit and took a job driving trucks.

Many years later, he became gravely ill, and doctors amputated his left leg below the knee. Now, Caddell is confined to a wheelchair and blind in his left eye. He never married and has no family. But he could belong to one of the most esteemed families ever--the Order of the Legion of Honor and its more than 114,000 members.

“I care about it, you know,” Caddell said. “But I’ve forgotten about all of it.”

Dahlburg reported from Paris and Fears from Los Angeles.

* VFW MULLS FUTURE: As ranks of WWII vets dwindle, groups such as the VFW ponder how to survive. A3