Glorieux, Gilbert Robertson

Born January 4, 1896, in Irvington, New Jersey. Son of William L. and Jean Robertson Glorieux. Educated Newark Academy and Princeton University, Class of 1917. Plattsburg Camp, 1916. Joined American Field Service, May 26, 1917 ; attached Section Nine to November 5, 1917 Returned to America in November. Enlisted as Private, U. S. Field Artillery. Trained at Camp Jackson. Died of pneumonia while a candidate at Officers' Training School, Camp Taylor, Kentucky, on October 13, 1918. Buried in Clinton Cemetery, Irvington, New Jersey.

NOTHING more clearly shows the spirit of Gilbert Robertson Glorieux than his declining, while still a private, to take up topographical work which would have led to a commission and instructorship, in America. His heart was set upon a speedy return to France and nothing less would satisfy him. He had gone over in May, 1917, with a Princeton unit of the American Field Service after being turned down for Aviation, and joined Section Nine, then in the field near Pont-à-Mousson, when it won a citation for its voluntary work during air raids. After serving at the front he felt that the soldier was as humane as the surgeon, and came home to enlist in the American army.

Gilbert grew up in Irvington, New Jersey. At school he "did just the things a boy would do; but always, from earliest boyhood days was he noted for absolute truthfulness." He read widely and was a popular member of several clubs at college. He sang in the choir at Princeton and was always keenly interested in athletics. Although of too slight a build for football or crew, he was the school's best man on "gym" and track teams. His never failing and whimsical courtesy is a thing that older people remember best; and to his contemporaries the idealism, and intolerance of wrong that carried him into the war and kept him in the army later against such odds of ill health, is memorable. He had, too, a rare twist of humor, and a keen penetration that gave him especial charm, and made his companionship a thing to cherish.

After his return from France he succeeded in joining aviation, but collapsed the first day at camp and was sent home. For several months he nursed a heart nearly twice normal size. Flying school was now out of the question, so as soon as he improved sufficiently, Gilbert joined the Field Artillery. His own high sense of duty made Gilbert choose the hardest path. During the first week of his convalescence, he wrote, in a letter to a friend: "It is not entirely patriotism that makes me want to go --- but I have been out to-day looking at the beauty of our old oaks, in a cluster, waving in the clean wind against the blue sky. I made friends with a sparrow and some bobolinks that balanced on spears of grass, and met a great cock pheasant breasting his way through the grass like a swimmer through the waves, his gay feathers shining and his red crest bobbing. Beauty and Love and Truth and Peace, are the reasons I want to go back, I should have to go, you see, whether we were in the war or not."

He worked hard at Camp Jackson through the excessive heat of June and July, and wrote that he "expected soon to be able to carry a cannon under each arm with comparative ease." In August he was sent to the officers' training camp at Louisville, Kentucky, and his captain said of him, "I considered him one of the best men in my organization for a commission." There were times when he longed to be back in France as a private, and times when his heart "objected," as he put it, to the exhausting work. He was able, however, to keep up until a few weeks before he would have received his commission, when he fell ill, this time with influenza, and worn out with the intensive training, developed pneumonia. Just as he died he said, " I wish I could tell you how wonderful it is, but it's so hard to make you understand --- The roll, the roll of honor!"

• Tribute from Memorial Volume of the American Field Service, 1921