The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project

Colonel Devries's sister comes to the picnic at Varner's Mill to watch her brother announce his candidacy, bringing her twin sons with her.

Veterans who have returned from fighting in the Second World War are a major element of the social landscape in the novel's second half. Goodyhay's unconventional congregation is made up mainly of vets, or their surviving parents and spouses; one of them wears a "barracks cap still showing where the officer's badge had been" to the church service (305). Because they know what "Devries's medal meant," veterans form an important element in the anti-Snopes coalition during the 1946 Congressional election (346).

Clarence Snopes invents this soldier as part of his smear campaign against Devries, spreading the rumor that during the war Devries chose to save the Negro soldier and left this white one to die (345).

The nurse in a battlefield hospital helps Devries reward the soldier who saved him in combat.

This soldier, "a hulking giant of an Arkansas Negro cotton-field hand," saves Devries and a sergeant by rescuing them under fire after both have been shot (339). Devries (unofficially) recognizes his heroism by pinning one of his own medals on the man.

The runner goes with Devries to help the pinned down battalion and acts as a guide. It's not clear what Faulkner means by calling him a "runner" (339): in the military that usually means a messenger, but can also mean someone who serves as a personal servant to a commanding officer.

This "Negro sergeant" is wounded as he and Devries hold off an enemy attack "single-handed" during World War II (339).

The man who serves as "the second" in command to Devries in the Negro combat unit (339). Given both what the novel says about the Army's reasoning and the historical facts Faulkner is drawing on, it is safe to assume that this officer is white - and probably also from the South.

This officer pins a medal on Devries for service during the war.