"Belleau Wood was a glorious, but an unnecessary sacrifice... It was magnificent fighting, but not modern war."
The battle was fought by the U.S. Marines attached to the Second Division, which was under the command of General Dickman.
So wrote the former W.W. I commanded of the U.S. Fourth Corps, Major General Joseph T. Dickman (1857 - 1928) nine years after the smoke cleared.
Click here to read some statistical data about the American Doughboys of the First World War.
Some decades later it was discovered that a full sixty percent of the invalided Doughboys were mentally deficient, and the Selective Service was unable to screen them out - you can read about that here
