The great adventure

“The great adventure” names the transformation of war from a distant idea into a lived obligation in Captain Harry S. Truman’s account of the First World War. Introduced in the declaration “It is the great adventure, and I am in it,” the phrase returns when Truman’s unit waits in reserve near Saint-Mihiel, giving the expression both the lift of an ideal and the weight of a job still to be done.

The Phrase and Its First Meaning

The book places the declaration beneath the chapter title “Soldier,” attributing it to Captain Harry S. Truman. Its first-person wording makes participation the decisive point: the adventure is not simply something happening elsewhere but an experience Truman says he is inside. The phrase compresses the chapter’s threshold between civilian life and military service into a confident statement of arrival.

That confidence stands against the circumstances that could have kept him out of the war. Truman was thirty-three in the spring of 1917, beyond the age limit set by the Selective Service Act; he had been out of the National Guard for nearly six years, his eyesight fell below service requirements, and he supported his mother and sister. As a farmer, he was also expected to remain on the farm. Against this background, calling war an adventure expresses the force of his chosen participation, not an absence of obstacles.

Return at Saint-Mihiel

The phrase reappears after Truman’s unit has been held in reserve short of Saint-Mihiel for several days, with its horses harnessed and everything ready to move at a moment’s notice. The narrative says that this was when Truman felt himself in “the great adventure” at last. Its return marks a shift from anticipation toward immediate military reality, though the unit is still waiting rather than fighting in that moment.

The surrounding details give the phrase a practical edge. Long lines of German prisoners marched past, and Truman wrote to Bess Truman that his men were doing their best to finish the job and get home, but could not leave until it was done; he added that they did not want to leave until it was done. The adventure is therefore bound to duty and completion, not merely excitement.

A Motif of Participation and Duty

The wording links Truman’s initial declaration to a later scene in which the mission’s unfinished character is explicit. Its recurrence gives the phrase more than a single, celebratory meaning: being “in” the adventure means taking part in a war whose course is not under his control, while accepting that his unit must stay until its work is complete.

That tension sharpens when orders change. Saint-Mihiel had become a sudden American victory, and the Germans were overrun in two days; on the night of September 16, the 129th began a forced march toward the Argonne Forest. The phrase thus gathers anticipation, waiting, and onward movement into a compact motif. Its significance lies in that progression: the adventure is first declared, then felt in reserve, and finally carried forward as a collective obligation.