One hundred years ago, my grandfather John “Jack” Lougee, along with 2 million other Americans, was in France. The First World War was not going well. France and Britain were bankrupt. American troops were needed to break the stalemate on the Western Front.
On Sept. 27, 1918, the American Army attacked in the Meuse Argonne battlefield. The country is hilly with open fields of fire. The Germans hid in extensive trenches and pill boxes on high ground. Machine guns were everywhere. The Germans called down heavy artillery fire on the Americans from hidden positions. The woods were full of poison gas.