Within a month of United States entry into World War I, Edmund P. Arpin of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, volunteered for the Army. He landed in France, December 31, 1917, and spent the first half of 1918 in routine training and mop-up operations far from the front line. As Allied need of troops increased however, he was shifted to Company F of the 128th Infantry, Thirty-second Division, and moved into the areas of heaviest fighting. He participated in the Aisne-Marne offensive at Cierges and Fismes, in the Oisne-Aisne offensive at Juvigny, and in September, in the Meuse-Argonne offensive where he was wounded and for which he received the Distinguished Service Cross. After the Armistice and recovery, he and a friend, trying to catch up to their back paychecks, roamed northern France and occupied Germany in an unauthorized but highly interesting chase. Arpin left France by troop ship on February 15, 1919, and was discharged, March 17.
