It all began June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

Gavrilo Princep, a member of a Bosnian-Serb student revolutionary group, assassinated Austria-Hungary’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife to protest Austria-Hungary’s 1908 annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Within a month, the assassinations engulfed Europe in “The Great War” (now known as World War I).

Four-and-a-half years later, almost 9.7 million soldiers and 10 million civilians were dead and another 21 million wounded.

At the beginning of the conflict, the U.S. remained on the sidelines, hoping the European nations would settle their neighborhood quarrel quickly.

As early as 1914, U.S. merchant ships were attacked and sunk by the German navy. The mounting losses and American deaths set the country simmering in anger.

Locked into opposing trenches, the war became a battle of attrition. Artillery boomed, destroying all trees and undergrowth, and leaving mountainous craters. Barrages often buried soldiers forever. All movement ground to a halt. The average life expectancy in the trenches was six weeks.

As Americans’ patience waned in 1916, a wave of patriotism swept the country.

More than five million Americans would soon sign up to serve in our army, navy, air service, medical corps, and transport and supply.

America’s entry into the conflict turned the tide and led the Allies to victory 18 months later. The victory did not come without cost: American families suffered 53,000 deaths and 320,000 casualties.

Our military not only suffered losses in battles. A second scourge, the Influenza Epidemic of 1918-19, killed a million people across the globe.

In the end, as many Americans died of the flu pandemic as died in combat.

A captain in the British Royal Army Medical Corps described the scenes in the trenches: “There were rows of corpses, hundreds of them, dead of something quite different” than combat.

“It was a ghastly sight to see them lying there, dead of something I did not have a treatment for.”

Deaths from the flu and in battle stretched the American Expeditionary Force’s medical systems. Soldiers were often buried where they fell. After the war ended, their remains were transferred to official American cemeteries across Europe. Many families decided they should rest there forever, others chose to bring their sons and daughters home. It often took four or five years for a family to receive a body for reburial back in the states, and there was no guarantee it was your loved one.

As the nation went, so went Cheboygan County. From every city, village and township, our county of 14,000 sent 800 young men to war.

Every community, village and township in the county organized active Red Cross Chapters to fundraise for special needs such as food, treat boxes, medical care and supplies for the boys serving across the ocean.

Of the 800 called to service from Cheboygan County, 34 made the ultimate sacrifice, including Steve Romes; Evar Carlson, son of Richard and Dorothy; Archie Milmine, son of Runsford and Zora; Alfred Edey, son of William and Hester; Clayton Murray, son of A.F. and wife; Walter Reeves, son of Arnold and Mary Jane; Luce Martin, son of Fortiena and Harrietta; Ivan McPherson, son of John and Mrs. McPherson; Albriek Deurwareder, son of Isedore and Blondina; Truman Harrington, son of Truman and Nancy; Michael Bovie; Reuben Lawson, son of August and Ella; John Pilon, son of Felix and Harriet; Egbert Nelson, son of Fred and Bertha; Noah Eno, son of Louis and Julia; Culbert Deroshia, son of Napoleon and
Frazil; Arthur Morgan, son of Henry and wife; Leo Louisignau, son of Charles and Matilda; Lloyd Freer, son of Samuel and Harriet; Gust Anderson, son of Peter and Clara; David Zurcher, son of Jacob and Marie; Frank Rivers, son of Frank and Delphine; Arthur Dargin, son of Henry and Catherine; Curick Brown, son of John and Stella; Clayton Shoebridge, son of George and Anna; Lester Elliott, son of James and Mary; Seth Reed, son of T.H. and M.E. Reed; Elmer Dumaw, son of Charles and Anna; Mark Dore, son of Cephus and Elizabeth; and Frances Barlow, son of John and Clara Barlow.

A Soldier’s Prayer oft’ recited by English speakers in the trenches of the Great War:

Lord ere I join in deadly strife
And battle’s terrors dare,
First would I render soul and life
To Thine Almighty care.
And when grim death in smoke wreaths robed,
Comes thundering o’er the scene,
What fear can reach the soldier’s heart,
Whose trust in Thee has been.