<p>To all who have served and sacrificed---especially to our Uncle Willie (Willaim) Patelski (Company H, 28th Infantry, US First Army, American Expeditionary Force) who was killed in action against the Germans in the Argonne, October 14, 1918.</p>
<p>Shogun, I echo your thoughts. Our family lost Alexander Herries, Jr. Corporal, U.S. Army 305th Infantry Regiment, 77th Division; killed in action October 4, 1918 buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery Romagne, France. Lost forever, but never forgotten as my father was named after him. What many do not realize because it happened so long ago is that America lost over 60,000 men along the Western Front in WWI in the space of only a year and a half. That is more than we lost in either Korea or Vietnam.</p>
<p>I am new to CC, and your thread touched me so much that I felt compelled to register.</p>
<p>Laf1980--welcome! Your comments are spot on--. Our Uncle Willie was brought back home at the families expense. His mother and father had emigrated from Germany in 1881, and were very concerned when he volunteered to fight in 1917. They endured some petty harassment at home in Michigan, being called "Huns" both during, and for a time, after the war, yet their son was the only one from their town to come home in a box having died for his country. His mother was actually a governness for Gen Von Ludendorff when the Gen was only 5 years old, and his father had been in a German artillery regiment in 1871. The family embraced America, it's language, and it's culture and gave one of it's son's fighting their former homeland. A strange world.<br>
I give thanks for the sacrifice of your family member as well.</p>
<p>Shogun - your family history is a prime example of the American dream. The harassment suffered by your German ancestors was quite common during that time. Many people with a surname of "Miller" today probably had their name changed from "Mueller" to avoid such treatment. Our country is what it is today because of the sacrifices of young men such as your Uncle Willie. Next Memorial Day I will make it a point to think of your uncle.</p>