Extras

J. Laurence Moffitt, June, 1917, aged 20.

He was then a private in the 102nd Regiment, 26th ("Yankee") Infantry Division.

J. Laurence Moffitt, November 11, 2003, aged 106. He is wearing his original Army helmet from WWI; the illustration on it is the Connecticut Charter Oak, the symbol of the 102nd Regiment.

Above: Anthony Pierro, July 19, 2003, aged 107.

Left: Anthony Pierro, 1918, aged 22. A recent immigrant from Italy, he was a private in the 320th Field Artillery, 82nd Infantry Division.

Above: Arthur Fiala, April 30, 2005, aged 106.

Left: Arthur Fiala, 1918, aged 19. He was a private in the 26th Company of the 20th Engineers Regiment. With some 30,000 men by the end of the war, the 20th Engineers was larger than most divisions.

The Kronprinz Bunker, the bunker of Crown Prince Wilhelm, son of Kaiser Wilhelm II and commander of Germany's 5th Army in WWI. The bunker sits in a forest in the Meuse-Argonne sector in France. An elegant building, it remains well-preserved, though souvenir hunters have long since carted off the fireplaces' marble mantelpieces bit by bit.

L'Ossuaire, the massive Douaumont Ossuary near Verdun, France. It is said to contain the bones of 130,000 French and German soldiers killed at the Battle of Verdun in 1916. New remains are still recovered throughout the vast battlefield and brought here regularly. The edifice also contains a chapel, a museum and an observation tower.

The World War I monument in Seicheprey, France, where the American 102nd Infantry Regiment was attacked by German shock troops on April 20, 1918. The inscription reads: To the French and American soldiers killed defending Seicheprey.

A home-made memorial affixed to the monument in Seicheprey, commemorating a local resident killed very early in the war. Such memorials can be found on most World War I monuments in France.

A display case in Gilles Lagin's Belleau Wood Museum in Marigny-en-Orxois, France. The case contains American artifacts from the Battle of Belleau Wood in June, 1918, including a boot, a helmet, tobacco tins, first aid kits, razors and cutlery. Lagin has collected thousands of such artifacts over the past few decades. His museum is open to the public by appointment.

A section of tree trunk from the Villers Cotterets Forest in France; on July 17, 1918, an unknown US Marine carved the USMC symbol and the date upon its trunk. It now stands in Gilles Lagin's Belleau Wood Museum. When asked how he got it, M. Lagin just smiled and said it wasn't easy.

An unexploded shell, believed to be German, that surfaced in a freshly-plowed field outside Romagne, France one morning in 2009, more than nine decades after it had been fired. (The author had to be restrained from picking it up.) Nearby were bullets, cartridges, and a uniform button — all German. These kinds of things surface every time fields are plowed in this part of France.

The grave of noted journalist and poet Joyce Kilmer in the Oise-Aisne American Military Cemetary, France. A sergeant in the 165th Infantry Regiment, 42nd ("Rainbow") Division, Kilmer was killed by a German sniper on July 30, 1918. He was 31 years old, and had already contracted to write a memoir upon his return.

World War I cosplay (minus the cos)

Inside the observation car on the Amtrak Empire Builder, somewhere between Chicago and Seattle. The gentleman on the right really liked his cider.

For more:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/27/travel/amtrak-empire-builder-train-small-towns.html?unlocked_article_code=1.jlA.ql2h.NgVs_TGHlpbp&smid=url-share