William Daniel Reinsmith was born on 3 October 1889 in Slatington, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania to parents Joseph Reinsmith and Maggie Handwerk. William was a 27-year-old rodman (survey crew chainholder) for the Lehigh & New England Railroad Company when he registered for the first World War I draft on 5 June 1917. He was called for […]
On 16 September 1940 the United States Congress, under the directive of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, passed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. It was the first peace-time draft in American history, although not unwarranted as both Europe and Japan were already in conflicts -France had fallen to the Nazis in June 1940 […]
Today marks the 75th anniversary of “V-E Day,” representing the allied victory in Europe during World War II. To commemorate the occasion, we wanted to talk about the history of the campaign medal awarded to service members in the European theater of World War II. The European-African-Middle Eastern (EAME) Campaign Medal was established by President […]
History of the World War I Draft When the United States declared war against Germany on 6 April 1917, its military was undermanned and unprepared to go to war. The first estimate for the number of men needed to send to the battlefields of France was one million. The standing United States regular Army was […]