One afternoon about 20 years ago, when I lived in Florida, I stopped at the famous Haslam’s book store in St. Petersburg. A tall volume in the used book section caught my interest. It was titled History of the Twelfth Engineers.

The 12th Engineers were a light railway regiment recruited mainly from the railroad men of St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo. They were unsung soldiers whose mission in France was to keep the front supplied with munitions, medicines and rations.

They spent the first part of their war deployment, from the middle of 1917 to the middle of 1918, in camp in England…