The three articles attached herein were printed five years apart and collectively recall three different events by three different arms of the American military, each claiming to have fired the opening salvo that served notice to Kaiser Bill and his boys that the U.S.A. meant business:
• The first article chuckles at the Army for insisting that the First Division fired the premiere shot on October 23, 1917 in the Luneville sector of the French front;
• The second article recalls the U.S. Merchant Marine freighter MONGOLIA that sank a German U-Boat on April 19, 1917 while cruising off the coast of England.
• following up with the absolute earliest date of American aggression being April 6, 1917 - the same day that Congress declared war - when Marine Corporal Michael Chockie fired his 1903 Springfield across the bow of the German merchant raider S.M.S COMORAN on the island of Guam.
"Statistics of the World War prove, however, that war was, from the standpoint of mortality, not vastly different from other wars. In spite of the improvements in methods of killing by machinery,Nature managed to runup a higher score than the enemy's bullets and shells. The Surgeon General of the Army, at the request of The American Legion Weekly, has prepared the following figures for the period of the war, from April 1, 1917 to December 31, 1919." This 1915 article goes into great length listing the names of all the assorted European noblemen and plutocrats who fell during the first year and a half of the First World War.
"The great world conflict which broke out soon after [the murder of Archduke Ferdinand] has placed the pall of mourning over every third home in the belligerent countries of Europe... The dreadful slaughter has fallen with especial heaviness on the upper and wealthy classes..."
The writer, Charles Stolberg, also included the names of the most admired European athletes who gave their lives for king and country. The battle of Cantigny (May 28 - 31, 1918) was America's first division sized engagement during the First World War; George Marshall would later opine that the objective was "of no strategic importance and of small tactical value". General Pershing was hellbent on eradicating from the popular memory any mention of the A.E.F.'s poor performance at Seicheprey some weeks earlier, and Cantigny was as good a battleground in which to do it as any. Assessing the battle two weeks after the Armistice, Pershing's "yes men" at The Stars and Stripes wrote:
"But at Cantigny it had been taught to the world the significant lesson that the American soldier was fully equal to the soldier of any other nation on the field of battle."
An article from THE NEW REPUBLIC recognizing that 1914 marked the end of an era. An article by Frederic Palmer concerning the progress made by the First and Second Divisions in the Marne Salient. "Evidently, the Twenty-Sixth meant that the hand was off the collar of the dog of war, but he could only go to the end of the leash. The Twenty Sixth was to be given the leash and the full field later...When the Twenty-Sixth started to attack on the early morning of the 21st there was nothing to attack. The German was going and the Twenty-Sixth was to give chase..." | 
