Talk:Lynn Montross

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Though biographical information on Lynn Montross is difficult to come by (mostly just the jacket covers), we can take some good calculated guesses at the basic facts.

The three years that Montross served in the AEF Regiment were probably from 1916 to 1919. He was probably recruited at the University of Nebraska, and therefore his unit was probably either a Nabraska National Guard unit or a regular army unit stationed nearby.

The fact that he was attending the University of Nebraska prior to WWI means that the Montross family was probably affluent or well to do; this was in the days before government grants and loans. In the early 1900s, only a certain segment of our society graduated high-school, and even less of them went to college.

I order to have been old enough to join the army in 1916, Mr. Montross would have to have been born before the turn of the century, in the late 1890s, most likely 1896 to 1898.

By WWII, he would have been too old to serve, or at least to be drafted, and he probably worked for the Chicago Daily during WWII and possibly through the 1920s and 1930s. The chapters about WWII would have been written in the mid- to late 1940s, and the last chapter of War Through the Ages is about the Korean War, which must have been written in the mid- to late 1950s. It was probably his writing and reporting during WWII, as well as his previous books, that earned him the post as a U.S. Marine Corps historical writer.

When Mr. Montross died in 1961, he would have been about 63 or 64 years of age.