Folks may reach me best via email. My address is hillaj@outlook.com. Also I am on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and “the new” MySpace. Previous email addresses, such as aaronjhill@yahoo.co.uk, ajhill@pdx.edu, mrmayor@hotmail.com, mrmayor@juno.com, hillaj@eou.edu and ahill2@chemeketa.edu, are no longer working.
AJH
AARON HILL’S NOTEBOOK 
Enjoyed your post about World War One. My great uncle, Eugene Cruise, of Adams County, Iowa was with Company K, 168th Iowa Infantry, 42nd Rainbow Division. I found many of his letters in searching the Adams County Iowa paper,and printed a book of the travels of his company to Camp Dodge, Camp Mills, the front, the occupation and back home.
Pat Shey
Cedar Rapids, IA
Pat, I had a great-uncle in the Machine Gun Company of the 168th Infantry. The information taken from the Croix-Rouge memorial site is incorrect in many ways. It really downplays the role of the 168th and makes the commander seem incompetent. Col E.R. Bennett was relieved of duty, but not until September of 1918 (more than a month after the battle) and the reasons were medical. The official history of the 168th described the battle from contemporary account and praised the Alabama units bravery, but also discusses the bravery and issues the 168th faced. Even the 167th Alabama’s official contemporary history speaks far more highly of the 168th than the brief write up on the Croix Rouge website.
I am trying to find out info re my father-in-law, Marion Burtch, who was a resident of Ottumwa of Iowa when he registered for the draft in 1917. An auto mechanic, he was funneled into the signal corps. Although he didn’t talk much about his experiences, he did mention that he served at “Bellow” Wood” and was caught in a gas attack during the delivery of a message. Any mention of him in your family papers? His great-grand son will be touring the WW I battlefields as part of a history class this summer, and I would like to make the trip more the trip personal.
Barb Burtch (barbur3921@att.net)
Aaron, I have my grandfather’s WWI Rainbow Division helmet and it is painted in a similar fashion. How much do you want for this helmet? David_palladino@yahoo.com
I don’t own any WWI helmets. I was merely writing about one I had found online.
Follow the link to the original post by the seller, at U.S. Militaria Forum. I don’t know if it is still for sale. It is listed at $300. The posting is a little more than a year old.
https://aaronjhill.wordpress.com/2013/05/16/a-doughboys-helmet/ http://www.usmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/175789-m1917-cammo-42nd-division/
Did you ever find a connection to Abner Darling born 1783 died may 1854 in Huron co. Ohio.
Did you ever find the Kreis Butow book from 1938?
I had the copy from the Library of Congress sent to me when I was student at Portland State. Also, a couple who live in Montana sent me their English translation, which they had been working on. I created a site about it at RootsWeb, but these pages were lost when the servers crashed. Ancestry has not restored them, but I will send another request.