I appreciate the work take the the work done to make this visit possible. Byould like to start thanking the Kansas City Public Library and the National World war i museum for sponsoring my visit here. I am very excited to be in kansas city, talking with you all about this historical figure , and retracing some steps a little bit. Theve been doing that over years, following stubby all the places he has been, and one of the places he has been is kansas city. I will talk a little bit more about that as the evening goes on. Lets go to the pictures. I brought lots of historical images to share with you. I will tell you a little bit about my own background. Himself, of stubby some of the stories behind the creation of the books i have written about him, one for adults and one for young readers. We will save some time at the end for questions as well. First, i want to make sure we are in on the same page in terms of terminology. When we are talking about dough boys, we do not mean this guy. Wentmerican soldiers who over to fight in europe during world war i were nicknamed stubby spent a lot of time with them in the trenches. And as i said, i have these two books about him. Is story is one of a number have written about him over the years. I have come to see myself as a storyteller, someone who tells takes true stories from our past, and forms them for readers. One of the stories i will start with is my own ideas about coming and author. If you had asked me in fourth grade, what do you want to do when you grow up, i would have said, i would like to be a Childrens Book author, not really knowing that might someday come true. It is not surprising that i chose to write about history, because i grew up in a very historic town, lexington, virginia, which has a lot of civil war history. In my childlike understanding of the world, i decided the way you could measure how historic you ofe was by the body count famous people and historical figures buried in your town, and we had a lot of them. We had the grave for lees horse , traveller. Also its of animals were important. Stonewall jackson and other confederate generals buried in lexington. When his horse, who was also famous, died, rather than burying him, some enterprising soul decided to stop him and put him in the museum. This was one of my favorite. Useum artifacts with Nothing Better to do on my meanders home. History, by now, was flowing through my blood. As i got older, i started thinking of other ways to write. I definitely retained that interest in history. It was not until i was quite a bit older i majored in english in college, in wisconsin , and it all sorts of professional writing. But it was not until i got older and had kids and started reading all the great childrens literature in our public library, like you may do yourself i reconnected with that genre and thought, i should see if i can write for children. I began experimenting. My kids are no grownups. This is a long ongoing experiment. They are in college. As i have watched them grow up, they have watched my career advance. I have had pieces in national geographic, including these about stubby. That helps you understand how i got to this stage. Let me give you the nutshell description of stubby. If you have not read either of these books, maybe this will encourage you to do so. Ofn if you are over the age there is lots of crossover potential here. Here is stubby and his favorite doughboy, james robert conroy. The two of them originated in connecticut, on the east coast, the town of new britain. That is where conroy was born. After stubby connected yourow wilson i know have been studying world war i with great enthusiasm. Even though the fighting broke out in 1914, it was not until 1917 that the United States made the commitment to send troops to europe to join the fight. There were these regional Training Camps set up around the country, including in new haven. On the campus of Yale University, some of the training took ways inside the athletic stadium and the playing fields. There were camps set up with tents and parade grounds. His was a great place, if you were a dog, to hang out. There was a lot of cooking. Were a number of stray dogs that were attracted to this encampment, including stubby, and it did not take long before stubby and conroy had connected. Conroy, histe sister, and look who is already in the picture. We have not been able to identify whether this is his brother, conroys brother. Was very much attached to conroy. Time toore it had come ship out for europe. Time, stubbyome went along. Less assisted by his friends in the camp when the and there struck soldiers climbed aboard a troop train late at night to head to virginia, where they were going to catch their transport ship over to europe. And when they got to newport news, it was a little trickier to figure out how to get the dog but there was some time before they had to ship out. Stubby was smuggled aboard with some connections conroy had made with one of the crewmembers on the ship. Not on board, hidden in a coal bin, im not until the ship was well out to sea did stubby materialize. At some point, stubby was not just thend by other fellows, but the Commanding Officer, which presented a little problem, because the dog was not necessarily supposed to be there. In fact, there had been orders given that no dogs were to make this trip. But stubby was quite an adept military figure by then, and he had made quite a study by the military. He understood bugle call. He certainly understood what that one wants, which was dinner time. He understood parade formations and military marching and so forth that the soldiers did. He knew that when the Commanding Officer showed up, dilatory protocol required military protocol required that if you were a dog you needed to sit down and rewrote on your front paws and raise your right pop up to your eye and look very soberly at this Commanding Officer until he returned your salute. And then you had given the due respect. Having done that, the Commanding Officer said, fine. He is our mascot. You can keep him. They get to france and there is more training. But before long, they are loaded into boxcars and troubling to the war front traveling to the war front. They get to this territory in france which has been overrun by german forces. By this time, its february 1918, so almost a year after wilson has asked congress to declare war in the fight, and in the phase of the warfare known as trench warfare, and when they are not fighting, they have these that they are able to take shelter in, and we actually that one ofh private conroys friends had made, showing probably conroy and one of their underground bunkers. If you look real closely, look. Ho is in the cupboard see that . Probably stubby, although he is not officially labeled. When they are not in the bunkers, they are above ground, and here is a photograph. Bittrench was this little of cover that you had a place for some safety and security that protected you as opposed to being out here in this open area of what became known as no mans land because it was no place for anyone to try to hang out and stay alive. Here you had, for example, the. Erman trenches weve got the allied trenches, and lots of crossfire going back and forth. Machine guns, artillery guns, shells of all different sizes, including very large shells inspired by the naval guns, also called railway guns, because in order to get them in position to fire, the troops literally had on railroad tracks. O draw the munitions forward ok, this is going on pretty much constantly. The barrage is back and forth, and soldiers become adept at being just about anything in the trenches, whether it is eating or sleeping or taking cover or fighting or whatever else needs to be done. Stubby figures out that this is he betterme, and adapt to it, and so he does. He learns how to hang out with the troops would its appropriate, how to lay low when its not. If there is major fighting going to go downncouraged underground to the bunkers, but played the role of official rat patroller. One of his duties was to capture the rats that were running around in the trenches. E sat guard with the soldiers when someone was doing guard duty, it was not uncommon for stubby to cuddle up to him and keep him company on a cold night. Perhaps his most useful skill at this point in the war was that tolearned very early on how detect when a gas attack was about to occur. Anyone who has studied up a little bit about world war i knows that this was there was a very serious use of Chemical Warfare where canisters filled with poisonous gas were being fired at the opposing sides, and these could cause serious discomfort, serious injury, even masks so soldiers had gas that they would put on to protect them. Once stubby got to the front, conroy helped to arrange for him to get a gas mask eerie at a lot of animals had them because otherwise they could be injured just like the people. Could detect probably with a combination of sound because dogs have such a cute, smell,nt hearing, and could tell that a gas canister. As going to be fired he became quite valuable for his ability to do that and even was credited on one occasion with some of theh bunkers underground and discovering a soldier who had fallen asleep and had not heard any of the alarms and woke the soldier up in time for him to he was gas mask on so credited with saving this mans life. The trenches,n people are getting injured. Stubby got injured at one point during a serious battle in april 1918. In 18 april stubby had climbed out of the tonch and started reconnoiter to see what the situation was, and then another shell came over and exploded, and pieces of that metal casing of the shell hit the dog in his chest, and he seemed to be quite seriously wounded, and conroy actually risked his own life to climb out of the trench and rescue stubby and bring him back into the cover of the trench, tried to dress his wounds. The field doctor took a look at stubby and dressed his wounds further and said he needs to go to the hospital so that he can be stitched up and literally ordered the dog to be placed into the ambulance along with other injured soldiers, and stubby was taken to a field hospital, perhaps one like this one. These are Pretty Simple establishments. You can see here they even have grass floors or dirt floors. Regulationot hospitals like we would find in our community. Nonetheless, stubby was sent to this hospital, was beautifully stitched up, and spent about three weeks recovering but did recover and went back and rejoined the troops, and here he is reunited with conroy in june 1918. By now, the warfare is shifting, are beginning to make one last attempt to press towards paris, and americans are joining the french in trying to push them back, and they are now fighting in this open country with wheatfields and Little French towns and so after and fairly soon stubbys military unit joins this particular area, he is part of the Yankee Division, the german assault collapses. The germans begin to retreat, and the allies keep pushing them back toward germany, so everyone is on the move, and so is stubby. He war dog one of the places they passed through is a small French Community in france, and while they are there, helping to defend the town because occasionally, the germans return stubby realizes there is hisg to be gas, and sounds usual alarm. Not only does he help to protect the soldiers who are with him, but also the citizens who live there. So now he has got all these fans, too. Already, the soldiers are good friends with him, but now hes got all these fans, and the women decide that he is such a soldier, this dog, he needs a uniform. sat is literally where stubby little military coat comes from. The women made him this jacket, and you may be able to see there is embroidery on that that explains he is in the 102nd infantry, and he has a Yankee Division patch on, an official one just like the fellows in the army do. You know, special military buttons and so forth. Is truly a war dog now. He has got his own uniform, and he keeps learning. He keeps getting new skills. When the troops are pressing forward against the germans and they are fighting back and forth in the midst of this retreat and combat, study comes becomes a rescue dog. This was a job that other dogs had on the battlefield, too, to help the medics find the injured soldiers. As dogs are better than people at telling whether someone who is lying on the ground is dead they have that sense that says a person is alive so they were able to pick out the people that needed to be taken care of first. Stubby and the other dogs could find people who were hidden in the tall grass or the wheat and were out of sight. They would carry little supplies that if the soldiers were not too badly wounded, they might be able to take out some bandages and help to dress themselves. Not content to just be a rescue dog, stubby also started gardening regarding prisoners of war, some german prisoners of war that had been captured as the allies are moving forward pursuing the german troops, and soldier who as any has served in combat will tell , military dogs developed all kinds of instincts and experience based on what they have observed during the war, so stubby was able to tell the difference between an american and a german. Probably mostly by smell. If you think about it, each army diet and sos own forth. There will be a different body owner associated with that. So stubby new very well even before he started guarding germans, what a german look like and smelled like. Frame in particular september 1918 when he captured. German all by himself the details of this are a little bit in dispute, but what is evening,that on one stubby was out on one of his little prowls. He liked to do that. Every now and then, he would go as the soldiers would joke, and then show up again. He would go out on little patrols just like his own little garden out. He was out on a patrol and came across this german. Some people said he was a german trying to figure out where the american and french troops were. Others say he is just lost, under so much confusion, and the troops were moving around so much the soldier had gotten dislocated from his unit. He didcase, stubby knew not belong where he was and began barking. The soldiers told him to stop doing that in start trying to charm him with german doggie charming speech, which does not have much of any impact on stubby, except probably to make him bark longer. So the soldier gives up on getting the dog to be quiet and decides he better run, and that does not work pretty well either because we all know dogs are pretty weak runners. Stubby is not a very big dog, maybe about this tall. He takes off after this guy. Hunk of the guys pants and probably a big hunk of the guy, too, at which point he says whatever the german form of i surrender is, and because of all that barking, the americans come running. Is up toow stubby something, and when they get there, they discover he has captured his own soldier. If he was not already held in high esteem, he certainly is now. One of the traditions of the battle was that if you captured someone, you got to keep war booty. If they had won medals, those became yours. And a case, this particular soldier that stubby had captured cross, a german iron which was one of the distinguished medals that would have been awarded two german soldiers, so naturally, by right 02 stubby and he does have a uniform after all so this later, is taken sometime but i will just point out where they decided to hang the iron cross. You can just see it hanging, in this not very polite position on. He back of the dogs uniform so stubby has one more distinction that has been added to him. Of stubby the topic is cheerful in the context of a war, but there is a war going on, and this all kinds of destruction, and of course, and much deaths sadness and trauma associated with the war as well, but it does come to an end, and theres great jubilation on armistice day, november 11, 1918, when the guns stopped firing. There is a ceasefire that marks the end of the fighting and the beginning of the process that will lead to a negotiation for a peace treaty. So the war has ended. Has survived. Conroy has survived. Over time, the process begins of getting the soldiers home. This time, stubby does not have to be smuggled aboard the ship. He is considered a veteran of the war just like everyone else and is able to march on board when he is off of the ship is considered a war hero along with everyone else, and you can see him here in a parade. This was in new orleans some years after the war. He was was so clever actually put in charge of leading different units of the parade. Who knew how to follow a color guard. He knew the various commands to stop and start. He knew when you went past the stand and you work given the order to turn your eyes right as salute to the dignitaries. Stubby would turn his eyes right. Militaryry much a veteran and was honored in all kinds of her rates. This was a parade specifically for animals. Eventually, he was given this very special harness with all these tags listing all the battles he had been in, which also served to allow him to carry a flag as well in the would marchwhen he in the parade. General pershing, head of all of the American Military soldiers andurope, was even asked gladly bestowed a metal on stubby that had been created to honor the dog by the Humane Society, and so this apparently is the only time general pershing pinned the medal on a dog, but i think he is doing it a great dignity, and stubby is putting up with it as well. There were other dogs that want to be as famous as stubby. This is Sergeant Major jiggs,he mascot of the marine corps but he was not old enough to have been in world war i, so he really and he did not have any particular skills. He did have a cool hat, and he was dropdead ugly, but aside ,rom that, he and stubby were you know although they knew what another, they would occasionally show up at the same stubby castr a much longer shadow band Sergeant Major jakes. They would compete for headlines. Rom time to time coolidge had all kinds of pets at the white house and was a big fan of boston terriers, and stubby was somewhat related to the boston breed, but stubby really eclipsed all of these dogs, too, and was so wellknown and so well regarded that he actually met oath of these president s as well as woodrow. Theet Woodrow Wilson while soldiers were still in europe and wilson had come over to negotiate the peace and reviewed a un