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October 18, 2018
Time: 4:00 PM - 5:30 PM
Location: Pebble Hill

The public is invited to a book talk by Nimrod T. Frazer, author of The Best World War I Story I Know: On the Point in the Argonne, on Thursday, October 18 at 4 p.m. at the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities at Pebble Hill.

The Best World War I Story I Know: On the Point in the Argonne is the breath-taking story of three U.S. Army divisions tasked with capturing the Côte de Châtillon during the Meuse-Argonne offensive in autumn 1918. Readers will first follow in the footsteps of Missouri-Kansas Guard troops who were repulsed in the opening days of the battle; their courage in the face of heavy fire was not enough to overcome poor leadership. They were replaced by the 1st Division, the “best of the Regular Army”. This fine unit became physically and mentally exhausted after suffering horrendous casualties. Unable to fight on, “The Big Red One” was exchanged at the base of Côte de Châtillon, with the 42nd, the Rainbow Division. It too struggled to gain ground on the heavily-contested hill until General Douglas MacArthur’s determined 84th Brigade of “Alabama cotton pickers and Iowa corn growers” forced their way past the Germans. The Côte was finally in American hands and the war all but over.

Nimrod T. Frazer is the son of Will Frazer a Greenville, Alabama native and World War I veteran (Rainbow Division, 167th Infantry Regiment, D Company) who received a Purple Heart for wounds received at the Battle of Croix Rouge Farm. Rod Frazer is a Silver Star veteran of the Korean War, a graduate of the Harvard Business School and a member of the Alabama Business Hall of Fame. In 2017, the Republic of France made him Chevalier in the Order of the Legion of Honor. In 2018, he received the DAR Medal of Honor. His first book, Send the Alabamians, World War I Fighters in the Rainbow Division, was released in 2014.

Frazer honored his father’s service by erecting in 2011 a Memorial to the Rainbow Division and the 167th on the site of the battle of Croix Rouge Farm. It honors all the soldiers of the Rainbow Division who gave their lives on French battlefields during WWI. The same memorial has stood since 2017 in front of Union Station, Montgomery Alabama, to commemorate the centennial of the departure of the 167th for Camp Mills, New York, and France. In April 2017, on the centennial of the entry of United States in WWI, he donated a bronze statue of Daedalus to the US Air Force to honor the American flyers of the air service. It stands at Maxwell Air Force Base.

The event is free, open to the public, and will be followed by refreshments. Co-sponsored by the Light Horse Harry Lee Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Auburn University Veterans Resource Center. Books will be available for purchase and signing.

The Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts & Humanities at Pebble Hill is located at 101 S. Debardeleben Street, Auburn. For more information on the program, call 334-844-4903 or visit www.auburn.edu/cah.