![]() ![]() The waiting to go overseas was finally over. They had a few more days to pass before the passage of the Chicago and so went back to Long Island to say their final goodbyes to their families. ![]() It was there at the Department of the East that they received their final instructions. Eventually the War Department sent secret orders directing them to report to General J. They had spent the past several weeks getting in some final training in Plattsburg before traveling ceaselessly between New York City, Washington, and Oyster Bay as their fate was being decided. The late spring of 1917 had entailed a great deal of back and forth for Archive and Ted. That became a reality when the Chicago left New York for Bordeaux on Wednesday 20 June. The Colonel was committed, quite publicly, to sending his sons, so much so that he pulled all the strings he could get his sons to Europe as quickly as possible. By June it apparent that the Wilson Administration, wisely, was not going to let Roosevelt command a division in France. Raising funds and awareness for that relief organization was not his only reason to take to the podium however with sons Archibald and Theodore now crossing the Atlantic aboard the Chicago to join Pershing’s nascent forces, he could announce that the boys had indeed left American soil. Theodore Roosevelt spoke from the pulpit of the Oyster Bay Reformed Church at Brookville on Sunday 24 June 1917 on behalf of the Red Cross. ![]() Archibald and Theodore (Ted) Roosevelt Jr. ![]()
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