“In reality, we have no big part in this war. All we can do is sit back and watch everything happen. The soldiers are just like us but a bit more important. It’s really the European powers that matter. Their actions are what decide whether or not more people will die. The soldiers are just there to do their dirty work. They’re to proud and will never stop; they’ll always compete for power no matter what the cost. I was relieved at first when President Wilson said we would not fight. But… the Lusitania sunk and took my mother and my sister along with many others. A total of 1,195 people died, 764 were saved. It was May 7, 1915; the Germans hit it with a torpedo from their submarine… a new form of warfare. First they begun with striking military ships, then they moved on to civilian boats. I don’t know how many times I begged them not to go, how I pleaded, but they didn’t listen to me. My uncle had been a soldier in France. He was in the trenches with the rest of his group and decided to cross No Man’s Land, to hit the enemy and cease the battle. He never made it for he became entangled in a piece of barbed wire. It wrapped around his neck and nearly killed him.

The army general then sent for my mother so she could take care of him. She refused not to go, said he needed her help, besides the army had paid for her and my sister to go. So she boarded with the rest of the passengers and waved good-bye as she smiled down at me…for the last time’. There was a total of 128 Americans on that boat and the sinking of the Lusitania angered us greatly. President Wilson wrote to Germany in threats of severe diplomatic relations if Germany did not stop attacking ships. For a while they did stop but later, in early 1917, they threatened to sink any merchant ships heading to British or Western European ports, and they did. They torpedoed 5 more American ships that year. This angered me greatly. I had lost two people I loved ever so dearly to their barbaric torpedoes and I knew how other families felt. Of course, America was outraged and decided to take action. 

On April 2, 1917 President Wilson asked Congress for a Declaration of War. We got it and joined the war on the Allies side, it was a good thing because not only did we get justice, but we balanced the number of countries fighting on the Allies’s side. Russia dropped out.  The sinking of the Lusitania was a day that I’ll never forget and it was this event that kept some soldiers going.”