Having selected Connie Ruzich as the July 2016 “Person of the Argonne,” it only seems appropriate to focus on her WW1 poetry blogsite:  http://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com.

During our communication she listed three American poems which she thought fit best with the Meuse-Argonne website.  These are linked and briefly described below:

Battling Homesickness:  The poem “Home is Where the Pie Is” was published in Stars and Stripes and was very popular with American troops.  In this blogpost, Connie includes a discussion of the role the YMCA and other volunteer organizations played in supporting morale overseas.

http://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2016/03/battling-homesickness.html

The Waiting is the Hardest Part:  The poem “For Those Who Wait” offers a unique look at the war–it argues that it takes a different kind of courage to endure the tedium of the time spent waiting between attacks.  It first appeared in Songs from the Trenches:  The Soul of the A.E.F.

http://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-waiting-is-hardest-part.html

A Challenge to the World:  The poem “The Heart of the World” was inspired by a speech from President Woodrow Wilson at Boston on his return from the first sittings of the peace conference in 1919.  Written by an African American, it remembers the sacrifice of black troops in the war.

http://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2016/02/a-challenge-to-world.html