Over there

the long version

"When America declared war in 1917, I was a few months past eighteen years of age and just finishing my first year in college. By the time I was to reenter in the fall for the second year, war activities were [under way] on a large scale. Men were going into some branch of the service on all sides. I felt that my family should do their bit in uniform, and my age designated me as the most appropriate one." This Texas A & M College student was Carl Andrew Brannen; these are his memoirs of a time when boys became men and your country became your life. Complemented with a unique set of photographs by the author's son that retrace his father's military campaigns and insightful annotations by two military figures, Over There is a highly personal account, presented from an enlisted man's perspective of the battle fronts of Belleau Woods in the Chateau-Thierry sector, Soissons, Pont-a-Mousson, St. Mihiel, Blanc Mont Ridge, and the Meuse-Argonne battle. As a first hand commentary and a social document of life in the trenches during World War I, it is a useful contribution to military history. Brannen's personal accounts will touch and fascinate all those interested in World War I.