Kansas has supplied personnel to the armed forces in all major wars and conflicts in which the United States of America has been involved since the state’s inception as a territory. Kansas was represented at the birth of the American Legion in Paris in March of 1919 by fifteen servicemen.
The American Legion Department of Kansas – whose members through the decades have included President Dwight Eisenhower, U.S. Sen. Robert Dole and GI Bill architect Harry W. Colmery – has a rich and storied history. The World War I generation, led by Colmery of Kansas, made the American Dream come true after the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944 was passed into law. In diverse communities large and small, nearly 300 American Legion posts are stitched into the fabric of the Sunflower State where patriotism and honor for those who served in the military have been deeply rooted, generation after generation, for a century.
— centennial.legion.org
Post 197 Founded – November 26, 1919
On November 26, 1919, a caucus was held at the Trego County courthouse to organize a Kansas branch of the American Legion in WaKeeney. Despite the wintry conditions, there were forty-one local veterans in attendance. The group elected Albert Acre as Chairman, and decided to name the post in honor of two of WaKeeney’s favorite sons who sacrificed their lives in distinguished service as part of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I.
WaKeeney Brothers Answer the Call of War
Local brothers Edmond and Day Moore enlisted for service a few months apart and headed to France in the spring of 1918, spending most of their time in battle separated and wondering about the fate of the other. Sadly, neither came back from the Great War. They suffered the same fate, killed in action, quite possibly on the same day, after ending up fighting side by side in France in the 35th Infantry Division during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.
Trego County did her part in the great World War, sending about 300 of her sons into service. — A.S. Peacock, Western Kansas World, December 11, 1919
Corporal Edmond Ephriam “Eddie” Moore (December 6, 1984 – September 28, 1918) spent nearly his entire life in WaKeeney, leaving only to attend college at Kansas State Agricultural college and Washburn college in Topeka. He registered for service with several hundred other brave Trego Country men on June 5, 1918 and trained at Camp Doniphan, Oklahoma before heading to the Western Front as a member of M Company in the 137th Infantry.
Private First Class Dalton Day Moore (December 20, 1985 – September 29, 1918) was so eager to volunteer, despite being too young, that he left WaKeeney for Kansas City to find a recruiting station that would enlist him. He went to the Western Front a few months later as part of L Company in the 140th Infantry.
The boys’ letters home to friends and family in early September 1918 indicated that each knew the other was in France, but hadn’t located one another. Sad news came soon after, when Eddie was reported killed in action during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, the deadliest battle in American history. Day was reported missing for several months and the entire town shared his mother’s agony of not knowing his fate. Hope came in a report that he’d been wounded but had since returned to duty. His family was relieved, but still concerned as they hadn’t still heard from him. Sadly, their worst fears came to pass when official reports as well as news from fellow soldiers confirmed he was also killed in the first few days of the Argonne Campaign near the Montrebeau Woods.
Some solace would come for friends and acquaintances of the brothers on May 15, 1919 from a couple other local soldiers returning home who mentioned, almost in passing, that they’d last seen Day Moore on the 16th of September 1918, when he came over to their company to visit his brother, Ed.
The greatest battle in American military history, the Battle of the Argonne, was a 6-hour barrage was launched on this hill and was taken by the Kansas soldiers in their first attempt on 26 September, and their trial by fire began; an ordeal that was to last six days and six nights, with little or no food, only snatches of sleep, and an uninterrupted rain of shells, gas, and bullets from infantry, artillery and warplanes. The 137th Infantry took every objective assigned it, but in the taking suffered casualties of nearly 1,300 men out of the 2,800 combatants engaged.