Everything stopped
First World War Audio Archive
Everything stopped
Transcript
Two soldiers posing for a photograph.
morning with ammunition, at 11 o’clock, and everything stopped. I’ll tell you that... I don’t know. I still think that, rough and tough as they were, that they were all saying a little silent prayer of thanksgiving that it was finished. But there was no, no celebrating there that night. No. There was more celebrations going on in Canada and England than there were over in France. It was just too, too hard to realize, you know. The reaction setsHorse and carriage.
in then. Even after I came home from the war, I found myself waking up under the bed, dodging shells. Which never bothered me, you know, when you were there. You were taut all the time, you know, high strung. But when the whole thing was over,Soldier standing "at ease", in front of a building.
you’d have a nightmare about the war starting up again. Oh no, several times I did that. Outside of that, it took quite a while to get that settled down again. That was a usual experience for many of them, I guess.Description
Mr. Gleason describes the lack of celebration when the armistice took effect, and how his war experience later resulted in nightmares.
Patrick William Gleason
Patrick William Gleason was born in North Dakota, USA, on October 31, 1897. His family moved to Yorkton, Saskatchewan in 1907. Mr. Gleason was a student in Yorkton prior to his enlistment in the 196th Regiment. He was accepted for duty on May 10, 1916, at Brandon, Manitoba, and arrived in France in early 1917 in preparation for the Battle of Vimy Ridge. Mr. Gleason was wounded in the thigh by machine gun fire at Vimy on April 12, 1917. After returning to active duty in France, he spent the remainder of the war hauling munitions to the front lines, and survived a shell explosion and two gas attacks at Amiens. Mr. Gleason was discharged, rank of private, on June 10, 1919. After the war, he farmed for a few years, then taught at several country schools until 1930 when economic and agricultural conditions left the school board with too little money to pay a teacher’s salary. Mr. Gleason then returned to farming in the Yorkton area, and was also employed as postmaster in his hometown of Tonkin from 1950 until he retired in 1973. He was instrumental in organizing sports activities in his community, as well as a Credit Union of which he was secretary treasurer for a number of years. During the 1940s and 1950s, he was also secretary treasurer of the local school board, president of the Saskatchewan Trustees Association, and president of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party. Mr. Gleason married Marion Cecilia Robinson in 1925 and had eight children. He died of cancer on June 21, 1978, and is buried in Yorkton.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 1:33
- Person Interviewed:
- Patrick William Gleason
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- First World War
- Location/Theatre:
- Europe
- Branch:
- Army
- Units/Ship:
- 196th Saskatchewan Regiment
- Rank:
- Private
- Occupation:
- Infantryman
Attestation
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