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By Root 2523 0

challenge, and in every state, the wheels had begun to turn. The machine was far from efficient, and successes were tempered by the frustrations of poor planning and uncoordinated efforts. The mistakes would magnify. The men who arrived at the army’s designated training centers found that there were no weapons, inadequate housing, miserable sanitary conditions. But still they arrived, and slowly, the camps came to life, the buildings went up, the numbers and effectiveness of the instructors increasing as well. If they had no rifles, they drilled with broomsticks. Prospective artillerymen built cannons out of bales of hay with clay pipes for barrels. They endured both the comical and the exasperating, a process that often seemed beyond repair, hopelessly tangled in bureaucracy and inefficiency. But still the recruits continued to arrive. And despite what some believed to be the insurmountable task of creating an army from the ground up, the troops and their fledgling officers kept their focus on the challenges before them.

Though the German government continued to insist to its war-weary civilians that the United States was a toothless infant, flailing uselessly from its own clumsiness, the government and the American people held to their belief, inspired by the stiff resolve of their commanding general, that the vast resources of the country and its people could be brought into focus toward accomplishing a single goal.

In London and Paris, the allies had doubts of a different kind, fears that the obstacles were too great, that the United States could not possibly field an effective army in time to prevent the utter catastrophe of a German victory. Already, feverish plans were in the works to parcel out the Americans as they arrived, to feed Pershing’s army piecemeal into the vicious meat grinder of the Western Front. To the Allied commanders, the Americans who would cross the Atlantic had only one purpose: to plug the gaping holes, to rebuild the manpower of the battered units of the British and French armies. Whether the Americans ever fought as a single force, whether the United States could ever put a distinctly American army into the field mattered not at all. Except to Pershing.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND—JUNE 8, 1917

THE BRITISH WELCOMING COMMITTEE HAD BOARDED THE BALTIC IMMEDIATELY after the ship had docked, and Pershing could see that the preparations for his arrival had obviously been well planned. The introductions had been made all around, the most-senior members of Pershing’s staff reacting with polite smiles to the cordial greetings they received from the British dignitaries.

He followed his hosts down the gangplank, stood close behind British Admiral Stileman, the only official representative from the British military. There were other men in uniform, officers from the British Home Guard, but Pershing had received their introductions from the admiral with the unmistakable tone in the man’s voice, a surprisingly indiscreet shrug that the Home Guard held no particular importance for a senior commander of the British navy.

On the wharf, a band stood ready, flanked by a formation of perfectly dressed soldiers, two men supporting the flagstaffs of both the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes. The two flags moved slowly, overlapping each other with the soft breeze of the harbor. The symbolism was obvious, something he had expected, the British going out of their way to demonstrate the unity between the two nations. As he reached the concrete pier, the band started up, a flawless rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Pershing stopped, removed his hat, glanced back to see his senior staff doing the same. They stood motionless for a long moment, waited for the piece to be completed, and Admiral Stileman turned to him, said, “General Pershing, your honor guard is from the Third Battalion, the Royal Welch Fusiliers. In the event you are not aware, these men are part of the very same unit that made their valiant charge up Breed’s Hill in June of 1775. Each man wears a slip of ribbon from the original uniforms of