After I left Uncle I went to Racoosin's house where I had a wonderful dinner of steak and other good eats. I certainly did enjoy that meal. ... After supper I attended a dance given by the YMHA [Young Men's Hebrew Association] of Detroit at the Shaarey Zedek. I met many Detroit Jewish boys and girls. This was the first time I danced since I left Bayonne. I slept at Racoosin's and next a.m. we woke up at 5 o'clock and we came back in time for our 7:30 classes. That was a good little enjoyment for me. It ought to keep me until Christmas.

Friday night we had a snowstorm and believe me, some storm! The snow was about fourteen inches high, the temperature all day on Saturday was 22 degrees below zero and the wind blew at 40 miles an hour. All traffic and communication was stopped because everything was snowbound. Our room was very warm as our landlady kept putting more and more coal on the fire. We have enough coal to last the winter.

By February 4th he didn't sound as confident:

The weather in Ann Arbor as well as other places is frigid. We have enough snow. Today we have a wonderful day, the sun is shining at its best but it is as cold as the North Pole. Coal is as scarce as diamonds. However our landlady has a supply that will last the winter-we hope. It was so cold today at the examination that the professor excused us from answering the whole test. The University is only opened during the daytime. Certain parts of buildings are closed entirely. This is because the University, which has enough coal, is helping out the city, which is without any at all. The closing rules are very strictly observed. Today all stores are closed.

I was unaware that you had been notified or were to be notified. I had a conference with the Dean, and he treated me well and told me that my marks in geology and Spanish are not satisfactory. He told me to brace up and see my professors.

Your letter acted as an inspirator. Your kind, friendly and instructive words I am thinking about constantly. It gives me encouragement to know that you believe in me and have faith in me. It is needless to tell you that I am working hard at my studies. I did not feel any too good due to the notice, but now I feel much better.

Teddy Roosevelt is speaking in Detroit this week and a great parade will take place. The University has called all those who wish to hear him to go in a body, which will be 1,000 men led by the famous Michigan band and faculty. Ripps, myself and Racoosin, also some of the other Bayonne boys, are going since we have no school and can hear Teddy-but most of all because a couple of good meals are awaiting us at Mrs. Racoosin's.

On April 5, 1918, Harold wrote a poignant letter home:

This a.m. I have finished my classes and am now on my spring vacation which I wish was rather the end than the start. I suppose it is foolish of me to say this but it is exactly how I feel, when the day is bright and sunny and the streets of Ann Arbor are filled with smiles and yelling of goodbyes and shaking friends' hands and wishing them a pleasant and enjoyable vacation. They leave for the depot with suitcase in hand and I return to my room and sit down to write this letter and make the best of ten days in a college town on a vacation, which is worse than living in isolation. Even the movies close up, store keepers also close and the thing you do is wish school opens again so the town will lay off its resemblance to a cemetery. So is life in Ann Arbor and such am I now about to embark into for 10 days. If you want to feel blue come to Ann Arbor and see a mob of students leave on the day previous to a vacation when you are not among them.

I desire that you make some arrangement whereby you can forward me fifty dollars of my own money so I can purchase a Liberty Bond. In the first campaign I neglected to purchase one. In this one I insist upon having one. A college campaign is going on and I desire to subscribe from the standpoint of a University student.

He was especially excited about wearing a uniform, informing his father that regulation shirts cost $3.50, while army shoes would be "$6.50 a pair retail. The shoes we are getting are being partly paid by the State of Michigan and our part is 80¢. Pretty cheap, eh?"

"Our uniforms are in Ann Arbor," he wrote excitedly two months before the US declared war, "and will be given out the week of February 11. They are heavy woolen and keep one exceedingly warm." In March he wrote:

In military drill we now drill in the field and it looks fine to see all the boys in their uniforms marching about the town and campus. I have been detailed as a guide. That means a temporary promotion and is one of the highest non-commissioned offices in the company.

Yesterday we had a special lecture by the dean and he read a letter from Presidents Wilson, Baker and Daniels requesting that college men not enlist unless they are of draft age. He urged that they devote their time to college and try to complete it in a shorter time. I wrote you before that the camp is not open to freshmen. So don't worry about me signing up. The government has not sent us bullets so we drill with guns minus bullets.

Harold Herman with unidentified friend, 1918.

At present everything is quarantined here, all the movies, churches and public places are closed. The men all wear influenza masks. Out of our company we have five men in the hospital with bad grippe, while in the barracks we have seventeen men with lesser grippe and colds. Every day doctors come to the barracks and spray our noses with a certain medicine.

Yesterday the officers called me in, asked me several military questions and then asked me if I want to go to an officer's training camp. You know the answer. Then he asked me my exact age and that spoiled my joy. "You're too godd***ed young, Sgt. Herman," he said. "You got time in another three months." So you can picture how I feel. Only two other men got recommendations that were asked. They were 20 years old.

I try hard to do the right thing by the men and I believe I have succeeded.

Harold Herman (second row from bottom) in the U-M's first Student Army Training Corps (SATC) class, bound for Waco, Texas, in 1918.

I am strict but still not hard. If I was rotten I would have heard and perhaps been busted out of my job. Ripps, who is a duty sergeant under me in my company, tells me I am doing good and that the men like me. I pass jokes in the proper place and time. When an error takes place I take the blame where I am wrong. I give them all a fair chance. It's a hard job to keep your authority over men to a certain point where you don't begin to dominate them. The men in my company are all juniors, and here I am a last year's freshman giving them commands.

In a letter of unusual frankness, Abe Herman wrote his son concerning morality and, more specifically, the specter of venereal disease. Harold replied confidentially, in a letter that he said was not to be read by his stepmother, and explained in detail the physical inspections and other measures that the army took to protect the soldiers (as well as the local female population) from fraternization and possible disease. "If a man gets a disease he is court-martialed," he said. "The army does all in its power to prevent immorality. But it's up to the men themselves."

Not only did the army forbid dating a "girl who does not look just right to the officer," it also told soldiers not to discuss the issue of peace with civilians. "You asked me a question about peace," Harold wrote, "about which we have definite instructions not to speak or write about." He then proceeded to write about it in detail:

Don't get rattled with this Peace talk. It's all newspaper talk. Peace is far off yet. The war is not over and won't be until our allied armies get to Berlin. That is the only Peace a true-blooded American citizen should want. Now is the time to hit and hit hard and our peace will come by victory, which will crush Kaiserism from the earth forever.

Two days after Harold wrote those words, the armistice ending the war was signed, on November 11, 1918. He had been eager to receive his commission and be sent overseas as an officer, and was sorely disappointed that he wasn't to have his opportunity for glory.

When the official announcement came from Washington some of us felt sore, from a personal standpoint and happy because we stopped Germany and the killing ceased. We did not get the news until the buglers played Sherman's Victory March one morning.

With the announcement of the armistice came confusion, and "rumor after rumor was around the camp." Finally "all the student officers were brought together and the General of the camp and the Colonel in charge of the school gave us a talk. This talk was straight dope and cut out all rumor for the time being." The camp was to continue, all classes would graduate and "the men will be commissioned and most of them will see service abroad." A large standing army was needed, and the General was "confident that many of us will be Lieuts. and have charge of the important work of reconstructing Europe, especially Russia."