John Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing in my view is in part responsible for a large percentage of the 14,246 soldiers of the US army that rest here at Meuse Argonne. He believed that his tactics of using rifles and dodging, hiding amongst trees and advancing without heavy armour back up would succeed against battle hardened German troops and the Maxim Machine Gun that they used with great effect. Such was his mentality he even ordered his troops to continue fighting after the armistice was signed resulting in 3,500 U.S. casualties on the last day of the war.
