Private Martin A. Treptow, A Real Hero

Just as Jimmy Carter's 1977 Inaugural Address sent Americans scurrying to their Bibles in search of the Prophet Micah, Ronald Reagan last week set the nation wondering about Private Martin A. Treptow, an obscure World War I hero. The new President, inspired by a letter from an unnamed admirer, quoted a passage from Treptow'sdiary: "America must win this war. Therefore, I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggle depended on me alone."

Reagan was wrong in implying that Arlington National Cemetery is the soldier's burial place — Treptow is interred in Bloomer, Wis. — but right about his heroism. Treptow grew up in Bloomer and moved to Cherokee, Iowa, to work as a barber. When the war began, he enlisted in the National Guard as a private and was sent to Europe with the 42nd "Rainbow" Division. During lulls in battle, he would give his fellow soldiers haircuts and scribble in his diary. On July 28, 1918, during the fighting near Chateau-Thierry, his commanding officer called for a courier to carry an urgent message. Treptow, 24, volunteered. He was killed before he could complete his mission. Says Treptow's nephew, Lyle Gehring of Roseville, Calif.: "The diary was found in his uniform pocket. It was quite bloody at the time."

After Treptow's body and journal were shipped back to Bloomer, the private's pledge received widespread publicity and was used by the Government in patriotic posters. Gehring remembers seeing the words framed at a Missouri training camp during his World War II service; another poster is part of a collection in the National Archives in Washington. The leather-bound original rests with Gehring's sister, Doris Roberts of Freeport, Ill. If the President had been able to read on, he would have found that even heroes can be lonely. The next entry reads: "Getting a poor start. At 8:30, still in bed, singing Home Sweet Home."