When Oyster Bay and Chevy Chase were champing impatiently at Woodrow Wilson's "watchful waiting," the most popular sport of U. S. college boys and prep-school seniors was to join the Lafayette Escadrille or drive an ambulance for the Allies. Quentin Roosevelt flew a plane, and lesser hotbloods like Ernest Hemingway piloted Model T Fords. From more than 100 colleges and universities and nearly every State went 2,500 volunteers to work for American Field Service, serve on every front, retrieve half a million wounded in their bouncing little trucks, collect more than 250 medals.
When World War II came, veterans of the...