100 YEARS.....

Today, April 6, 2017 marks the anniversary of the United States entry into the "War to End All Wars", WWI.
Although it would be months before our troops entered the trenches, the fact that The United States had committed to the fight was a great boost in moral for the British and the French.  They had suffered through three years of a stalemate costly in lives as well as resources.
The first American to die in the war happened on April 1st when Chief Boatswains Mate John Eopolucci died in a lifeboat after the ship he was an Armed Guard on was torpedoed off the coast of France.  On April 7, our first shot of the war was by a Marine aboard the USS Supply when he fired a shot across the bow of  a German motorboat in Apia Harbor, Guam.
American troops did not enter the bloody trench stalemate until November.  There they were met by a new form of warfare---Gas!  Not yet fitted out with gas masks many suffered serious injuries and learned to combat the Mustard and the Chlorine gases by soaking a cloth in urine.
Space does not allow the "Rest of the story".  But it is important to know that in the year we were involved in the "Great War" almost 55,000 Americans were KIA, the last one just one minute after 11:00 Am, November 11, 1918.  His name was Pvt. Henry Gunther of A Co. 313th Inf Reg. when he charged a German machine nest.  He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross....Medicneman!