In April 1917, the United States entered World War I with great enthusiasm but little awareness of what that entry would require. To make a difference in the war, America would have to quickly create and field a large, modern army. The Army War College had designed 28,000-man divisions to dominate the battlefield, but the Army had no place to train them and, worse, not enough senior officers to lead them. The decision was made to promote all of the existing brigadier generals and colonels to fill the command requirements and hope they would learn on the job. Being selected to command a division in the American Expeditionary Force could be the path to honor and success or it could lead to absolute failure and dismissal. Pershing's division commanders would find the Western Front a harsher school than anything they had faced in their previous battles on the Western frontier, in Cuba, the Philippines, or China. This book profiles each of them, including a nationally recognized expert in native sign languages and another who had been court-martialed for torturing a Philippine official. Some were replaced because of their age or physical problems even before they get to France.

One had been a senior engineer building the Panama Canal and another a noted Alaskan explorer. Two of them coached college football teams in their spare time. Four were Medal of Honor recipients and one had been a cowboy. Each has his own unique story to tell.