“My twenty-third birthday occurs next week. Despite your two additional years, you may yet outlive me.” (Letter to sister, 11/22/1917)

Leo Joseph Bailey

Leo Bailey in uniform, Westdale, NY [7/1917] War: World War, 1914-1918 Branch: Army Unit: Company M, 9th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Division; Prisoner of War Escort Company 85, Army Service Corps Service Location: Fort Slocum, New York; Syracuse, New York; France Rank: Sergeant

Leo Joseph Bailey was wounded at Belleau Wood while diving for his dugout during an artillery attack, and would spend two months recuperating in various hospitals. Despite his injury, he later looked back fondly on this period. In his memoir, he recalled sleeping in a bed for the first time in nearly a year, and awaking to clean linens and a hearty breakfast as “the ideal life of a soldier’s dreams,” even if his days were punctuated by the daily dressing of wounds. After several months, he was classified as fit for light duty behind the lines and transferred to Prisoner of War Escort Company 85.