Before history sanitized World War I, a soldier wrote it down in his diaries.Inside an old steamer trunk, a scholar uncovered forgotten diaries, revealing the voice of Ned Steele, a young American forever reshaped by the first global war of the modern age.Beginning in Detroit and ending in the ravaged fields of Europe, Steele's diaries trace his transformation from a civilian volunteer in 1914 to commissioned officer commanding machine-gun units on the Western Front. What unfolds is not a heroic myth, but an unfiltered chronicle of endurance: choking mud and gas, relentless artillery, shattered towns, exhaustion beyond measure, and the moral weight of leadership under fire.Between battles, S...