Sidney D. Light's WWI Diary, Postcards & Letters, 329th Battery Book Accounts

                                   Some are born officers, some achieve commissions and some have commissions thrust upon them. That was true in this man’s army, anyway, and Major George V. N. Lothrop was an officer of the first variety—he was (and is) a "born leader" of men. To say that the regiment would have followed him to hell in the toughest STRAFING that Heine ever laid down is not a high-sounding statement but a fact.

        We loved this quiet, clean-cut master of artillery. Although he never figured on it, he had the range and deflection for a direct hit on our affections. We pulled the lanyard on him ourselves.

        Back in the pioneer days, when the Major (he was Captain Lothrop then) first took the report of Lieutenant Carnahan as Acting Top Kick and bade us snap to attention, we opined, "That man’s a SOLDIER! You can see it and sort o’ feel it." As time wore on,, this first impression never faded but strengthened into the aforementioned affection, universally. Here was our idea of a soldier, a gentleman and a scholar.

        It was Major Lothrop who gave us a talk when we were altogether in old Barracks 399 and said:

        "Our country, for a number of years, has been getting more and more a hodge-podge of nationalities. This army is going to change all that; to show you that you are all Americans. Why, I know two men right up the line from here, one worth two millions, the other stony broke. The one who hasn’t any money is going to learn that the rich one isn’t any piker, and vice versa. You are going to be better men when you go back home. This war is going to bind you together. This nation is going to be unified after the war into the greatest, best nation the world has ever seen."

        It was this same Major who told the papers when we got back that there "never was anything like the way our boys put their shoulders to the wheel and carried on in dust or mud, and without show or complaint."

        We ask you, could we help being strong for a man like that?

He gave the Other Fellow credit.

         That was his natural style. Came as natural to him as figuring firing data. He had a good word for every worthy project that came up. His share in making this book possible is a noteworthy one. He was a booster without a band.

        Speaking biographically, George V. N. Lothrop was born about 36 years ago in Detroit. He graduated from Princeton, where he distinguished himself scholastically and on the crew. He went to Fort Sheridan at the first call for officers (leaving some sort of business they write novels about) and qualified for a captaincy right off the bat.

         He was the ranking officer at the time all the skeleton organizations were housed under one roof and later commanding officer of Headquarters Company. In November, 1917, he went to Fort Sill and came back a major.

         He was a student of everything—the time, the job and the men. And he took to artillery like a mud hen to the Mississippi. If there was anybody who knew more about the American and British pieces—and the way to tame them—than he did, you’d find him out looking for that individual. Same thing applied to the French 75's and methods on the other side. He was a genuine learner, and as such he made an admirable teacher.

         Absolutely fearless under fire, he went out to help some linemen fix a wire one night when things were hotter than they’d ever been—and recommended them for a decoration, later on.

       He’s all man—and we wouldn’t want to forget him in after years, even if we could.