[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 56 (Monday, April 9, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2001-S2002]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  REMEMBERING SERGEANT WILLIE SANDLIN

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to remember a man called 
Kentucky's greatest hero, who served our Nation in the First World War 
and later received our highest military recognition, the Medal of 
Honor. SGT Willie Sandlin, a native of Leslie County, KY, single-
handedly attacked and disabled three German machinegun nests during the 
Battle of the Argonne Forest in 1918. With only a rife, an automatic 
pistol, and four hand grenades, Sergeant Sandlin's heroism resulted in 
the death of 24 German soldiers and the capture of 200 more.
  At that time, Sergeant Sandlin was under the command of General John 
J. ``Blackjack'' Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary 
Force, who personally recommended him for the Medal of Honor and 
presented the award to him in February of 1919.
  In a recent edition of the Kentucky Humanities Magazine, Dr. James M. 
Gifford, the CEO and senior editor of the Jesse Stuart Foundation, 
published a profile on the life of Sergeant Sandlin. Dr. Gifford traced 
his journey, from his birth in Appalachian poverty, through his 
remarkable service in the Great War, to his campaign to improve 
literacy rates in Kentucky. Named for the renowned author and Kentucky 
Poet Laureate, the Jesse Stuart Foundation publishes important works 
from Appalachian authors to help the region's unique heritage flourish. 
I would like to thank Dr. Gifford for his study of this proud son of 
Kentucky.
  I ask unanimous consent that a copy of Dr. Gifford's article on 
Sergeant Sandlin's life be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

           [From the Kentucky Humanities Magazine, Fall 2017]

               Sergeant Sandlin: Medal of Honor Recipient

                         (By James M. Gifford)

       In 1917, after several years of provocation, America 
     declared war on Germany. By November of the following year, 
     the United States had sent two million men overseas.
       In the bloody fighting that took place in the Meuse-Argonne 
     Forest in the fall of 1918, thousands of Americans 
     distinguished themselves, including two young men from 
     central Appalachia who received the Medal of Honor. On 
     September 26, 1918, Sergeant Willie Sandlin, acting alone, 
     attacked and disabled three German machine gun nests. During 
     his heroic assaults, Sandlin killed 24 German soldiers and 
     assisted in the capture of 200 more. Less than two weeks 
     later, Corporal Alvin York led an attack on a German machine 
     gun nest, taking 35 machine guns, killing at least 25 enemy 
     soldiers, and capturing 132. Sandlin was from Hyden in Leslie 
     County, Kentucky, and York was from Pall Mall, Tennessee, a 
     community just across the Kentucky line. Although York and 
     Sandlin shared the same military distinctions and emerged 
     from similar Appalachian communities, their lives after World 
     War I were remarkably different. York acquired money and fame 
     and became a national icon and an international celebrity. 
     Sandlin lived in modest circumstances, ill-health, and 
     purposeful obscurity until he died of war-inflicted gas 
     poisoning at age 59.
       If war is a rich man's war and a poor man's fight, then 
     Willie Sandlin represented millions of poor men who became 
     soldiers during World War I. Born into Appalachian poverty, 
     on January 1, 1890 on Long's Creek in Breathitt County, 
     Kentucky, Sandlin's parents were John ``Dirty Face'' Sandlin 
     (born March 17, 1867) and Lucinda Abner Sandlin (born 
     December 1870). John and Lucinda had five sons: Willie, 
     Charlie, John, Elihue (Sonny), and Mathew (Mathy). When 
     Willie was a boy, his father was imprisoned for murder, and 
     Willie's mother and father divorced in 1900. Lucinda, who was 
     half Native American, died in childbirth in 1900, so Willie 
     and his motherless siblings were divided among relatives, as 
     was the custom of the day. Willie and his brothers Charles 
     and John were raised by his father's relatives in Leslie 
     County.
       Sandlin enlisted in the Army on April 16, 1913, and served 
     under John J. Pershing on the Mexican border. He re-enlisted 
     in 1917 and was soon on his way to Europe as part of the 
     American Expeditionary Force. Sandlin arrived on France's 
     bloody Western Front in time to take part in the Battle of 
     the Argonne Forest, the massive Allied offensive that finally 
     defeated Kaiser Wilhelm's war-weary German army. The Meuse-
     Argonne Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Argonne 
     Forest, was a major part of the final Allied offensive of 
     World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. It 
     was fought from September 26, 1918, until the Armistice of 
     November 11, 1918, a total of 47 days. The Meuse-Argonne 
     Offensive was the largest in United States military history, 
     involving 1.2 million American soldiers.
       Sandlin and his men were in several battles during the 
     summer of 1918. Then at Bois de Forges, France, on September 
     26, 1918, Sandlin emerged as one of the greatest heroes of 
     World War I. He was in charge of a platoon of 59 men when the 
     day began. Following an all-night artillery barrage, 
     Sandlin's platoon was ordered to advance that day toward a 
     specific, important military objective. The line had been 
     fighting for hours, advancing slowly, when the doughboys were 
     stopped by withering fire from

[[Page S2002]]

     carefully placed machine gun nests, two guns to each nest. At 
     7 a.m., orders were given to ``halt and lie down.'' While 
     others were trying to stay below the hail of deadly gunfire, 
     Willie Sandlin had a rendezvous with destiny that changed his 
     life forever. Sandlin observed a narrow lane between the 
     firing line of the two guns. Arming himself with four hand 
     grenades, an automatic pistol, and a rifle, he charged the 
     nests alone. Advancing within 75 yards of the guns, he threw 
     his first grenade, which fell short and exploded without 
     effect. He raced forward while the enemy emptied two 
     automatic revolvers at him. When he was less than 50 yards 
     away from the intense machine gun fire, he threw his second 
     grenade, which struck the nest. He then threw two more 
     grenades, charged the nest, and killed three more German 
     soldiers with his bayonet, making a total of eight enemy 
     combatants that he killed there.
       Sandlin's platoon advanced and he again took command of his 
     men. The Americans moved forward and flanked another machine 
     gun nest and Sandlin dispatched it in the same way, utilizing 
     grenades. When his grenades were spent, four men still 
     defended the nest. Sandlin had killed them all with his 
     bayonet by the time his platoon arrived. The line continued 
     to advance and at 2 p.m. Sandlin destroyed a third German 
     machine gun nest and its occupants in similar fashion. His 
     heroic assaults resulted in the death of 24 German soldiers 
     and the capture of 200 more German soldiers. Sandlin's 
     commander, General John J. ``Blackjack'' Pershing, praised 
     him for ``conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and 
     beyond the call of duty'' and recommended him for the Medal 
     of Honor, detailing his heroic actions and praising the 28-
     year-old Sandlin's ``splendid example of bravery and coolness 
     to his men.'' Pershing personally presented the Medal of 
     Honor to Sandlin in February of 1919 at Chaumont, the general 
     headquarters of the AEF. Pershing would later describe 
     Sandlin as the outstanding regular army soldier of World War 
     I.
       When the war ended, Sandlin returned home to Leslie County 
     for six months. In December, 1919, because of his exemplary 
     military record, he was appointed special escort for the 
     bodies of soldiers who had died overseas. Sandlin left for 
     France in January 1920. Later that year, Sandlin returned 
     home and married the former Belvia Roberts, a woman he began 
     courting at a box dinner social after he first returned from 
     Europe. Their happy marriage produced one son and four 
     daughters who reached adulthood: Vorres, born in 1921, 
     followed by Leona, Nancy Ruth, Florence, and Robert E. Lee 
     Sandlin. Cora and Rose died of childhood diseases before 
     their fourth birthdays.
       Like his more famous counterpart, Tennessee's Alvin York, 
     Sandlin returned home with a heightened commitment to 
     education and community service. In the years following WWI, 
     eastern Kentuckians were working to improve the quality of 
     life in their mountain homeland. Two of the region's greatest 
     leaders were Mary Breckinridge, founder of the Frontier 
     Nursing Service at Hyden in 1925, and Cora Wilson Stewart, 
     founder of the ``Moonlight School'' program to promote 
     literacy. Newspapers reported that Willie Sandlin, 
     ``Kentucky's greatest hero'' had joined the crusade ``to help 
     stamp out illiteracy in Kentucky.'' Sandlin toured the state 
     with Stewart and spoke in hundreds of towns and villages. He 
     was so devoted to Mrs. Stewart and her campaign that he and 
     Belvia named their second child after her--Cora Wilson 
     Stewart Sandlin.
       Willie Sandlin never presented himself as a celebrity. He 
     was too modest to seek public adoration and too shy to enjoy 
     the attention of the media, but he did, on several occasions, 
     attend local and national meetings where he was recognized as 
     a Medal of Honor recipient. Throughout the 1920s, Sandlin 
     continued to attend Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) meetings 
     in the hope that the VFW could help him receive additional 
     benefits as a wounded, injured, and disabled veteran.
       Like many wounded veterans, Sandlin wasted no time in 
     pursuing benefits. In 1921, government physicians at a 
     Veterans Center in Richmond, Kentucky, examined Sandlin and 
     reported that he was ``suffering a serious lung infection as 
     a result of gas inhaled'' in the Battle of the Argonne 
     Forest. To make a claim for increased compensation, in 1925 
     Sandlin appeared before the United States Veterans' Bureau 
     in Lexington. Sandlin was only receiving $10 a month 
     compensation for being a Medal of Honor recipient, a 
     reduction from the $40 a month he was receiving when he 
     was ``invalided home.'' In 1928, at age 38, Sandlin should 
     have been in his physical prime when he moved back to a 
     house on his father-in-law's property. Instead, according 
     to some newspaper accounts, he was very ill. Sandlin 
     ``coughed and wheezed a great deal,'' especially in the 
     winter. By 1928, Sandlin had spent time in hospitals in 
     Chillicothe and Cincinnati, Ohio, and ``other places.'' An 
     old army buddy encouraged Willie to move to Colorado 
     because he thought ``the dry air and high altitude'' would 
     help him. But Willie would not leave his eastern Kentucky 
     homeland, and he didn't have enough money to travel if he 
     had wanted to. ``I'm not one-third the man I used to be 
     before the war,'' he observed without complaint. ``If I 
     take 25 steps up the hill, I'm done for. My wind's gone.'' 
     In 1928, Indiana Senator Arthur R. Robinson and others 
     presented a bill to Congress which ``would enlist and 
     retire as a captain Willie Sandlin, Kentucky hero of the 
     world war, who is now destitute.'' The whole unproductive 
     process of seeking the benefits he deserved became 
     exhausting and demoralizing to Willie Sandlin, yet he had 
     no choice but to continue.
       Aware of Sandlin's financial difficulties, Senator Hiram 
     Brock, who represented Leslie County in the state 
     legislature, continued his efforts to get funds from the 
     state government to purchase a farm for Sandlin. Senator 
     Brock's efforts had been inspired by the American Legion's 
     efforts to raise money to provide a home for Sandlin and his 
     family so they could ``live with the common comfort of 
     life.'' During the 1920s, the VFW had established a ``Hero 
     Fund'' and called upon ``all patriotic citizens, along with 
     members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars'' and ``others 
     throughout the country to mail in their contributions to the 
     VFW, McClelland Building, Lexington, Kentucky.'' VFW leaders 
     said there would have been no need to raise funds to buy a 
     home for the Sandlins if Willie had been willing to ``sell 
     his birthright for a mess of pottage.'' According to VFW 
     leaders, a ``celebrated moving picture concern'' had offered 
     Willie $500 a week to re-enact his heroic deeds, but 
     ``Sandlin refused to capitalize on his war records'' and 
     turned down ``other offers to profit from his patriotism.''
       Life after the war was just one medical examination after 
     another for Willie. He was examined at Cincinnati in 1928 and 
     given a 69 percent disability rating, which would have 
     entitled him to a fair compensation. But the Louisville 
     Veterans' Bureau, which had jurisdiction over Sandlin, 
     appealed that rating to the Bureau of Appeals at Chicago and 
     the bureau then placed the case before the Veterans' Bureau 
     in Washington. Bureaucracies do not always yield justice, and 
     technicalities blocked compensation for him, making a special 
     action by Congress necessary. Despite his continuing efforts, 
     Sandlin, who had been wounded twice and gassed twice, never 
     received any disability compensation from the Veterans 
     Bureau, and he never received a penny of the money that was 
     donated by private citizens to purchase a farm for him and 
     his family.
       By the beginning of the Great Depression, Willie Sandlin 
     realized that he would probably not receive any money from 
     the Veterans Administration Bureau to compensate him for his 
     warsustained injuries. So the Sandlins did what tens of 
     thousands of Appalachian families did: ``they hunkered down'' 
     and ``did the best they could with what they had.'' They 
     became subsistence farmers. Drawing on practices that were 
     more than a century old, subsistence farmers, like the 
     Sandlins, produced almost everything they needed from their 
     farms and nearby fields and forests. They raised cows, hogs, 
     and chickens for meat, which was supplemented by food from 
     vegetable gardens and orchards. During the Depression, Willie 
     and Belvia both worked extremely hard to make a good life and 
     a good home for their children. During those years, Willie 
     also worked as a supervisor on a WPA road project.
       Although Sandlin's health continued to worsen, he still had 
     a large family to support. So, in 1941, for the first time in 
     his life, Willie sought political office and ran 
     unsuccessfully as an Independent for Leslie County jailer.
       In December 1941, a journalist called on the Sandlins at 
     their home. Willie, Belvia, and their guest sat comfortably 
     in ``a long living room'' and talked about ``a number of 
     things,'' but soon the conversation turned to Japan's attack 
     on Pearl Harbor and America's entrance into another world 
     war. Willie refused to talk about his heroics in World War I, 
     but he told his visitor that if his health were better and if 
     ``the navy would take [me, I would] join tomorrow.'' In the 
     early spring of 1942, the old warrior, who was 52 years old 
     and in very bad health, went to Hyden and registered for the 
     draft.
       Early in May 1949, Willie's breathing problems grew much 
     worse. Belvia took him to the hospital in Hyden; two days 
     later he was transported by ambulance to the Veteran's 
     Hospital in Louisville. Belvia went with him and stayed in 
     the hospital room for the next three weeks, along with her 
     daughters, Florence and Vorres. One of them was always in 
     Willie's room.
       In the early morning hours of May 29, Belvia and Vorres had 
     gone to the lobby to rest while Florence remained in the room 
     with her father, sitting next to Willie's bed and holding his 
     hand. Doctors had advised Willie to move to Phoenix. They 
     thought the climate and environment there might improve his 
     health. He squeezed his daughter's hand and said, ``We missed 
     the train [to Phoenix].'' And then he was dead. He went easy, 
     with a smile and a sigh. He was originally buried in the 
     Hurricane Cemetery in Hyden; however, in September 1990, 
     Sandlin's widow had his remains re-interred in the Zachary 
     Taylor National Cemetery in Louisville. When Belvia died in 
     1999, at age 98, she was buried next to her husband.
       Now he belongs to the ages. He had been raised in poverty 
     and had grown into a quiet, resolute man of courage and 
     honor. Willie Sandlin spent a lifetime accepting adversity 
     and inequity and meeting life's challenges with a smile and a 
     ``can do'' attitude. All he wanted from life was to serve his 
     country, build a home, and enjoy his loving family, and he 
     achieved his goals through hard work. Only death can stop men 
     like Willie Sandlin.

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