ONE FROSTY DAWN in November 1934, 500,000 World War I veterans rolled out of their blankets in the pine barrens around the Civilian Conservation Corps camp at Elkridge, Maryland. The brassy bugle notes of “Assembly” hurried them to the camp’s parade ground, where, mounted on a white steed and surrounded by his staff, they found their leader, Major General
The surest sign of impending death was the skin’s ghostly bluish tint, a pall of sickness that soon, even before the onset of rigor mortis, would turn deep purple and then slate gray. The technical term for the discoloration — first in the lips and ears — was cyanosis, a condition brought on by inadequate oxygenation of the blood.
