A Young Man of Montana: From Hard Youth to Hawaii Mule-Skinner

by Daniel T. Miller

Irvin Atchison lived a hard life as a young man growing up around Sidney, Montana, in the difficult times of the 1920s and 1930s. He had a way with horses and a hardscrabble life. When he joined the US Army, he had no idea that his skill would take him to the mountains of Hawaii to train mules in preparation for the coming War.

160 pages, Hardcover

Published October 1, 2021

Reviews

[BRYAN BALDWIN · Rating 4 out of 5]

In A Young Man of Montana: From Hard Youth to Hawaii Mule-skinner, Dr. Daniel T. Miller chronicles the story of Army Soldier Irvin Atchinson’s journey from the windswept badlands of Sidney, MT to service in Hawaii during Imperial Japan’s early conquest of mainland Asia. The Montana of Atchison’s youth was a hard and beautiful place where the Indian Wars and closing of the American West were fresh in the historical memory. Coming to age in the Great Depression, Atchison viewed military service as a path toward upward mobility, first in the Montana National Guard and later in the active Army. Upon completion of basic training, Atchison is assigned to the 21st Infantry Regiment at Schofield Barracks, HI. Although Atchison finds himself in a beautiful, yet unfamiliar place, he finds his niche as the company mule-skinner. The apex of Atchison’s Army service would be in an exercise validating Plan Orange for the defense of Oahu. Plan Orange relied heavily on small, light infantry units fighting in the rugged Hawaiian mountains and Atchison and his mules were integral to their movement and resupply. The 21st Regiment performed well in the 1935 validation of Plan Orange directed by Maj Gen Hugh Drum and Atchison would be discharged shortly there after, moving back to Montana. Although Plan Orange was tactically sound, it would prove to be based on faulty assumptions due to misreading of Japan’s operational objective in Hawaii.

Miller’s prose is clear and he is careful to contextualize the arc of Atchison’s service with the broader events happening in the world around him. Although Miller’s book is not a critical historical study of military operations or strategy, he does offer an authentic portrait of life as a peacetime Soldier in an America slowly awakening to the reality of confronting global Fascism. A Young Man of Montana is a quick and engaging read that not only offers a glimpse into Army life during the interwar years in Hawaii, but also because it paints the portrait of a young Montana man whose honorable service to his state and nation would be the building block for a life well lived.

[Cheryle · Rating 4 out of 5]

phy that allows the reader to look at a life worth living.A very good biographical look at an unsung hero of the Old West. A Young Man of Montana is set in the plains of eastern Montana near Sydney during the early part of the 1900's. Irvin Atchison was born in 1914. His father died in 1918 during the influenza epidemic leaving a widow and three children. Irvin's mother was forced to look for work to support her family leaving the youngest, Irvin in the daily care of two older brothers. Soon after the young mother sent her youngest son to live with his father's parents. This set up a precedence of shuffling Irvin from one family to another for most of his childhood. He was forced to work on the farms suffering abuse and harm. Because of this work he learned to love and care for horses as well as other animals. This type of beginning would turn many young men into hardened criminals before they left their teens. But Irvin was different. He joined a group called DeMoLay's which was founded on the principles of pursuing the seven virtues.

Soon after graduating from high school Irvin realized he needed to do something to improve his future and sought to join the Marines. He and a friend hopped on trains just as the hundreds of hobo's of the time and traveled to California. He found the recruiting station but during the exam they discovered his color blindness and rejected him. Not to be deterred he found the Army recruiter and was accepted. He took to Army life easily. After training in Spokane, Washington he was sent to Hawaii where he served the rest of his military service working with mules. He trained mules as well as caring for them and readying them for a "difficult" mission. Soon after the military exercise was completed he realized he was homesick for Montana and bought his remaining military time and returned to the place he loved. He settled in Billings, Montana where he passed away in 2009.

Irvin Atchison looked to the military life for the promise of a good future. He found that while the place he served (Hawaii) was beautiful the place he had left (Montana) was where he had begun.

Daniel T. Miller has given us a look at a man who learned much in life from the life he experienced along the way. He held his principles throughout and lived a full life. Dr. Miller has placed Atchison in the larger picture of what was going on in the world while learning his place in it. The author used many examples of this through examples of: President Franklin D. Roosevelt's CCC program, Amelia Earhart's flight from Hawaii to the mainland as Atchison was traveling the opposite direction, and many other events.

A Young Man of Montana is a worthwhile read especially for those who enjoy reading of people who many not seem like heroes but live a life that is exemplary. Montana history is steeped in many examples of "heroes" just like Atchison. The author used many hours of taped conversation provided by Atchison's grandson to weave a biography of life worth living.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, but instead I found it very difficult to finish. I was looking forward to learning about Irvin Atchison, but it felt like the author had only a few pages of information about him and had to fill a whole book. To me the book shares the times/places/historical events surrounding Irvin's early life and the author's commentary on them rather than telling the reader about Irvin himself. With a very different title and description, this book might have been ok (though still very wordy), but as it was, my expectations were not met.

[Jeanette Vogl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. I live in Central Montana and it was very interesting to learn how life in eastern Montana was during the Twenties and Thirties. Throughout the story of his young adult life there are snippets of history that were very fascinating but did not bog the book down with detail. Daniel Miller's words makes the reader easily able to visualize how life was for Irvin Atchison , at all stages of his young life.

[Honey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting story of a young man's life growing up in Eastern Montana between the two World Wars. His story continues on to his life in the Army in California & Hawaii. I found it a bit disjointed but all in all a good read.