“Many of us called it the ride of death, for we were riding to what was to be the biggest battle of the war.” (Diary)

Theodore Kohls

Theodore Kohls, Jefferson Barracks, Missouri War: World War, 1914-1918 Branch: Army Unit: Company A, 26th Infantry Service Location: Jefferson Barracks, Missouri; France; Fort Sheridan, Illinois Rank: Private Place of Birth: WI

Not yet fifteen years old when he enlisted in the Army to fight in World War I (he told recruiters that he was 22), Theodore Kohls got a liberal education on the battle fields of France, witnessing some of the fiercest fighting that Americans were involved in. He wrote of his exploits in a diary, which his widow kept after he died in 1948. After she died in 2001, her daughter found the diary, which Kohls had never completed, and donated it to the Veterans History Project.