Alvin Cullum York, the most famous son of my home county, was the greatest American hero of World War I. He won every military commendation from the Medal of Honor on down. In 1941, Gary Cooper portrayed York in a propaganda war movie to froth Americans up for World War II.
I don't consider military heroism York's greatest feat. That would be the establishment of Alvin C. York Institute, Tennessee's only state-supported public high school.
York grew up in the poor Mountain South. The word "poor" in this context cannot be explained unless you see this poverty first-hand, even today. Americans think that inner cities harbor the most extreme want. I won't deny that, but go to Southern Appalachia and you'll see stuff that's on par with parts of Detroit, Cleveland and the like.
York used his war fame to push for a public high school in his beloved mountains.
My brother portrayed York in a community drama production in 1998 called "A Hero Comes Home." (photo at right is my brother around the time he portrayed York, in photo at left. Spooky, eh?).
In that play, my brother delivered the line that showed York finally deciding to obey his draft notice and go to Europe to fight: "I'm going to war with the sword of the Lord in my hand."
And he did, killing and capturing a nest of German soldiers with cunning and skill.
Then the hero came home and used that sword (metaphorically, of course) to start a mountain school.
Here's what York said years later in the intro to the war diary he kept:
"In my young days we had practically no schools in the mountains at all. The roads were bad and we had no money. The schools that were there were run about two and a half or three months a year. I got about to the third grade. There were over 100 of us in a little room and our seats were split logs with no backs on them. After I left school I never did get to go to school anymore."
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