A compelling first-hand account of the final months of World War I emerges from the letters, recollections, poems, and published work of an American machine gun officer. These varied writings follow the darkening trajectory of his wartime experience, from the high spirits of training camp in Alabama and the excitement of arriving in France, to his first battlefield testing in Alsace and the final agonies of the Meuse-Argonne offensive. Life Isn't So Sweet As It Used To Be is both a ground-level description of how that epochal war was fought and a coming-of-age story of a young man from a small Maryland town. Born and raised in Havre de Grace, Maryland, Millard E. Tydings enlisted as a private in 1917 and rose to become a decorated machine gun officer serving in Alsace and the Meuse- Argonne in 1918. The battle plan that Tydings developed for machine gun protection of advancing infantry in the attack on Etrayes Ridge was taught at West Point for many years. After the War, Tydings was elected Speaker of the Maryland House of Delegates and went on to serve four terms as United States Senator from Maryland.