Before there was Veteran’s Day it was Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I. My grandfathers were both too old to be called up for the Great War; my father was far too young. None of my grandmothers’ brothers were called up for it, either, so no one in my family participated.
I wish I could say that World War I was the U. S.’s first war of choice but it wasn’t. Obviously, it wasn’t the last, either.
Considering that the Lusitania was sunk a full two years before the US entered WW I, and we endured two years of unrestricted submarine warfare, the idea that we were forced to enter the war by the actions of the Germans is debatable. WW II is a better candidate for an unavoidable war, but many historians think it would not have happened if we had stayed out of WW I and let the Europeans bleed each other out. We might not have had the Communist terror either.
My grandfather served in WW I in the Army infantry in the Ardennes. My father was at the Normandy landings and walked through the Ardennes 20 some years later.
I never served, but all of my brothers-in-law did, three in Nam.
We had not been neutral. We had been shipping munitions to Britain and France for years before the Germans began unrestricted submarine warfare. British records revealed that the Lusitania had been carrying munitions when it was sunk. Consequently, it was a) a legitimate target and b) a violation of neutrality.
A better diction would be that we entered the war several years before we declared war.