Traveling by car did not change anything else, however. We still slept on the ground in bedrolls and ate a barely edible stew made from potatoes, carrots, and beef jerky. And there, right with us, was Black Jack Pershing himself.
“The man’s as hard as any I’ve ever seen,” Patton told me one evening as we sat around a campfire. I had to agree. And frankly, I was surprised. When I first met Pershing I thought he might be a bit of a martinet. No doubt he was a stickler for discipline, and he was punctilious about his appearance, even when we slept in the open. He even made it a point to shave every morning, rain or shine, hot or cold—even if he had to use ice-cold water to get lathered up.
But Pershing would never ask a man to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. And that fact earned him the
