it's a nice example of being able to compare a letter that he wrote to his girlfriend, bess truman along with an artifact we have in our cliques. so truman is shipped out in the spring-of-1918 and he heads off to europe. when truman left for france, he is lieutenant truman. he received a promotion to captain and didn't find out about it for months. so when he left for europe, he had his tack box where he kept his equipment for his horse and on it, he had written in black print "lieutenant harry s. truman." once he found out he had been promoted to captain he wrote over the top of that. so it shows both the before and after his promotion in the service. the first thing truman did when he went to france was he was assigned to special advanced artillery training school at a small village in france. and these are some of the tools he would use and equipment that for his artillery training, includes slide rules and compasses and other things like that. he had his advanced training. and then he was sent and put in command of a battery. it was battery d of the 129th field artillery. they called

bess from various locations. one of the letters was from monte carlo. "godey, gorgeous, just what you would expect from placing tourist and making them gamblers. the fleecing is done at the hotels and cafes." trumanwere finally able to return to the u.s. in the spring of 1919 on the ship on the way back, his battery members gathered together and made donations to raise money to give truman their commander a loving cup, from battery d associates. truman was proud of this. after the war, when he set up his haberdashery business with eddie jacobson, truman displayed this in kansas city. other people from his unit would come in and it would be a place where they could gab about the war. when he came home, there is a nice photograph of part of battery d and the officers of the 129th field artillery with harry truman front and center in that photo. in june, 1919, harry truman one his greatest battle -- won his greatest battle when he married his longtime girlfriend. this is a photograph of the reception after the wedding. their wedding was on june 28, 1919, exactly five years to the day from when archduke frantz ferdinand was assassinated and the war began. june 28, 1919 was also the day that the versa