
By John Biver
Historian John Keegan writes that on July 4, 1917, elements of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) paraded in Paris. A year later some of those men were to fight and die in the Meuse-Argonne offensive, the biggest and most costly military campaign in America's 232 year history. Sadly, too few people have even heard of it.
The battle lasted forty-seven days and left 26,277 American soldiers dead and 95,786 wounded. Think about that toll mounting so quickly. Do the math - that's 4,300 men dead every week for six weeks. After over five years of fighting in Iraq there are 4,100 dead and almost 30,000 wounded. It definitely was a different time.