His father died when York was only 28, so he started working in order to support his family. He took a job helping at the family farm and being a Blacksmith. He took any job he could get, including working at a lumber camp. While there, he picked up many distressing habits, such as smoking, drinking, gambling and barroom brawling.

That York was heading toward self destruction, until, as he put it, the intervention of “God and Miss Gracie.” York was getting drunk one night with his friends at a town get-together when he saw a teenage girl he had known since she was a baby, he was twelve years older than she was. As soon as he saw the older Gracie Williams, he never drank, fought, swore, smoked or gambled again.

He later explained to everybody that, “Miss Gracie wouldn’t let me come acourting ‘til I quit my mean drinking, fighting and card-flipping. I was struck down with the power of love and the grea

He never fully explained why he had decided to fight, but that didn’t really matter to his superior officers. His shooting capabilities earned him the rank of corporal and he was sent to France to fight. He ended up in the Argonne Forest in northeastern France, just south of Belgium, where the Germans had set up their virtually unbreakable Hindenburg Line.

York had become a deeply religious man, and so he despised killing. He did not understand the war, and did his best not to go. He claimed he was a conscience objector, and said that killing was against his religion. But since he was of the church of Christ, and it was not nationally recognized as a religion, his appeals were rejected.

The film was the first to realistically portray the hardships of farmers and of poverty. It also treated the rural people with respect instead of the stereotypical country bumpkin. Because of York’s insistence of the film staying true the facts, the movie is head and shoulders above the usual glamorized Hollywood biography. Even with this in mind, some of the events had to be shortened so they could fit on the screen in time. The three-day debate between York and his officers runs six minutes; York’s two-day struggle about to return to the Army takes three minutes. And his assault on the Germans is only three minutes, with the entire battle scene being ten minutes long.

When Lasky asked Cooper, he refused outright. He openly admitted to being scared, “Sgt. York was too big for me. He covered too much territory.” Other actors such as Henry Fonda and James Stewart had no qualms about taking the role of York. In fact, they were closer to York’s age at the time of the events depicted in the movie, but Cooper was too old, being 39. But York would only have Cooper, no one else. So Lasky told Cooper it was his patriotic duty to do it.

However, the uneducated York made the big-shot producer agree to certain specific terms. He wrote the agreement down and made Lasky sign it, with the governor of Tennessee as a witness. The conditions were set by York to make the film as accurate as possible. Though York would not personally make any money, all of his royalties had to go to the founding of a bible school. No actress who smoked, drank or was any kind of “oomph girl” could play Gracie, and the actor who would play York had to be the one actor York liked, Gary Cooper.

York, who was a corporal, was the highest commanding officer unhurt. He ordered the eight remaining American officers to guard the Germans, while he left to charge the ridge alone. He lay on the ground and waited for the machine gunners to raise their heads to aim. When they did that, he shot them in the head. He thus silenced thirty-five machine guns, while bullets mutilated the surrounding ground. After the battle, York came back and saw that all of the ground around where he was hiding was devastated. He firmly believed that God was protecting him.

Some topics in this essay:
Americans Germans, Miss Gracie, Nevertheless Cooper, Murray Savage, House Representatives, Germany Lasky, Tennessee Born, World War, Post April, Revenue Service, commanding officer, rest life, send peace, world war, real lovable, battle york, patriotic duty, war york, sgt york, deeply religious,