Private Duval takes a “break” in October 1917

Westmount, Quebec – 05 October 2017: Many of you have been following the daily exploits of Private Raymond Duval, MM by reading his diary which has been published every day on the RMR website since 22 March 2017 – publishing what he wrote precisely 100 years later to the day. Private Duval has been faithfully recording in his diary every single day.

His story is about to take another “breaks”. He won’t be posting daily for a while.

The reason for these breaks is because Raymond Duval is about to start being rotated back into the line with the rest of the 14th Battalion (RMR). He has been ‘enjoying’ a bit of a break from the front lines since August as he recovers from wounds suffered at the Battle of Hill 70.

It is not just the combat itself that interrupts the diary, but rather the overwhelming reality of the mundane preparations for the same – be it inspections by visiting generals & politicians, exhausting route marches to get into position, or simply having some spare, lazy time that was spent in pursuit of finding friends, loafing around in the French summertime, etc. War was not always hell at all times, after all!

Our friend Raymond will be back posting on 12 October 2017.