Shell Shock

Now and again there occur alterations of the ‘emotional’ and the “apparently normal” personalities, the return of the former often heralded by severe headache, dizziness or by a hysterical convulsion. —Charles S. Myers, Shell Shock in France, 1914-1918: Based on a War Diary

By the time the United States was dragged into Europe’s war in April of 1917, over 370 Busters had registered for the draft.

While half a dozen were either killed in action or died from diseases, twice as many died between their forties and early sixties, their lives cut down at least ten years from than the average male of their time. Not only could stress create long term physical damages brought on by alcoholism, heart disease, and suicide, recent studies also suggest trauma has been linked to accelerated aging.

A few other Buster women became artists, such as Winfred Buster who was a local actor involved in entertaining wounded WWI soldiers at the base. By 1922, entertaining and supporting survivors of WWI, and Winfred in San Francisco was one of them. Meanwhile, other Busters dealt with the lingering aftermath of war. By the time Winfred made local headlines in July, three months later, another Buster would make headlines for an entirely different reason.

The precise number of Busters who suffered from PTSD and/or “shell shock” is uncharted; however, a third had made the newspaper once more, this time, recognized as the “Lost Memory Man.” Great-grandson of William Jr., twenty-two-year-old Charley Roy Buster born from rural town Perry, Kansas, in between Topeka and Lawrence, moved to Kansas City, Kansas, where he worked for Rock Island Railroad as a trucker before enlisting as a private.

He was drafted in June of 1917 and finished in April of 1919. The two pieces of evidence that survived from the 1973 St. Louis records fire were his draft card and veteran headstone application; his discharged papers did not. The San Diego Union newspaper stated he served in the American Expeditionary Forces, or the AEF.

One month entering the war, Maj. Gen. John Pershing was pulled from the Mexican Revolution out of Texas to command the AEF in France. The 41st Infantry, which Charley was assigned to, was meshed together with the National Guards from the Pacific West and Midwest during the summer, and arrived in Europe by November. As part of the AEF, Charley would have been a part of the Aisne Offensive on the Western Front, enduring trench and chemical warfare. His short stature didn’t prevent him from serving; only needing to be strong, healthy, and able to march as well as pull the trigger. He had been noted for being at the Argonne Battle in 1918, France’s last series of its most brutal battles. The war was far from winding down, and the Meuse-Argonne Offensive desperately needed replacements with its third attempt to break through the German lines near Belgium. Beginning in late summer, it was the largest offensive in United States military history, involving 1.2 million American soldiers, where three Busters were killed, including Enoch, son of Loyalty Ranger, John. 

Charley’s regiment merged with the 41st Infantry, 10th Division, coming from Camp Funston, Kansas in September of 1918. As a newly constructed boot camp in Riley County, Kansas, Camp Funston was one of sixteen training camps across the country that developed from a necessity to train farmers and laborers into soldiers. Camp Funston was known for two momentous facts: The first was preserving the Buffalo soldier tradition, historically celebrated by Black American soldiers on the prairie, the next generation was trained to fight overseas, even if in a segregated section. And secondly, as many historians have concluded, was the hot spot which spread the Influenza pandemic worldwide. The first men reported with the illness came from Haskell County, Kansas, and appeared to pass the flu-like symptoms to others. Whether Charley had been among them is difficult to verify, but about forty-five thousand American soldiers had died from influenza and pneumonia related symptoms, making up almost 40% of their deaths during the war.

When a truce was struck at 11:00 p.m. on the 11th day of the 11th month, his division had been utilized for demobilization. No doubt he knew men who continued to die from their wounds while the world battled with the rise of influenza. Aside from experiencing mustard gas, and likely other types of wounds inflicted by bullets, bugs, trench feet and canker sores, the term “shell shock” actually upholds two references: concussions, or other head injuries, inflicted by bombs with their violent vibrations if not from flying shrapnel, and the emotional shock. British doctors began to take notice of soldiers suffering from trembles, headaches, ringing in the ears, dizziness, confusion, sleep disorders, and loss of memory. Other issues such as narrowed vision, and losing smell and taste, were recorded as mysterious symptoms.

 The usage of mustard gas, which caused temporary blindness and the feeling of drowning, were added to the list. Charley would experience all the above.

He returned home a single man, and therefore, he moved in with his mother and four sisters in Kansas City, Kansas. Then a peculiar thing happened in 1921. He disappeared and somehow ended up in California fifteen months later, and, without his memory. Quite possibly it was wrecked by a serious head injury, and that certainly didn’t help; however, he would spend the remainder of his life in neuropsychiatric veteran’s hospitals. Neuropsychiatric hospitals focus on patients with Intellectual Impairments who also suffer from acute psychiatric distress. The trauma which caused his life-long illness may not have only been war related, simply adding on to his pain.

The first sets of trauma barged in when Charley was eleven at the heels of his two older sisters’ childhood deaths. His father’s death followed four years later. He would not know about his brother’s sudden passing, five months after his disappearance. A year and a half had passed when Charley’s plight emerged on paper as “Lost Memory Man” and as a “patient in Imperial County Hospital” with a “fragmentary tale of life.”

The photo revealed a young man with a square jawline and broad nose, a fashionable Clark Gable mustache, his eyes slightly uneven. The paper went on: “His memory confused and uncertain, this man being cared for at the Imperial County Hospital, and authorities are searching for some light on the man’s past, his home life, his war record, and the maze of events at which the patient sometimes hints vaguely, sometimes forgets.”

Given the name Miles Harry Johnson by the hospital, a dog tag he had in a coat pocket attributed to his new name. Charley entered the hospital with symptoms regarding the pain in his lungs, and was unable to speak for several days. When he finally spoke, his memory had holes, but oddly, he could recall his army number 4,921,422, and one only one number off, as his headstone application listed his number as 4,921,522.

 His memory loss and lung damage clearly demonstrated that he had been gassed. “Immediately after conversing, this young man…forgets everything said. His mind in its action gives one the impression of an infant attempting to talk for the first time.” Another obvious brain injury he endured was the inability to control how much to eat, nearly eating for three men.

 He claimed he had been traveling with someone by the name of George Carpenter, still uncertain if he had been traveling with him since Denver or San Diego before being admitted into a hospital in El Centro, California. He also claimed to have never known his mother, instead recalled her as a stranger, someone whom he had rented a lodging room from, however remembering her name as Laura Buster, and remembering the exact address. He did remember that he left Kansas City in June. Another inconsistency in his memory was about his time spent in France. “I was in the army in France and was hurt, but that was in 1914. I wasn’t in France in the big war that you tell me about.” He also thought he was thirty-one years old, not twenty-seven. 

Huey reached out to Charley’s mother, Laura, her name and address not hindered by his memory loss even though he thought he had no mother. She confirmed that he had indeed left home on June 6, 1921, and provided information that he spent twenty months in France where he was gassed. She further explained he had been suffering from headaches caused by an insidious pressure, so much so, that they were planning to schedule an operation to ease his pain. It was that week when he disappeared. What occurred during those lost months of his life couldn’t be pieced together, and this infliction would be a lifelong struggle. Charley’s circumstance wasn’t a solitary tale. The years spanning from 1919 to 1930 revealed at least 11,100 cases of amnesia. Between WWII and the Korean War, the number increased by over 14,600.