In the centennial year of General John ""Black Jack"" Pershing's birth, the story of his life, and of the A.E.F. he commanded in the first World War, is told succinctly in words and pictures. Covering early Army days, the Spanish-American War, Philippine service, and Pershing's tragic loss of his wife and three daughters in a fire, the book then devotes its longest chapters to the expedition to France. The battles--- Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood, St. Mihiel, the Argonne, Verdun---are all revisited. Pershing's struggles to give his army autonomy and victory, and his peacetime activities in retirement round out the account of the stern, just soldier.