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The state of Missouri played a unique role in World War I-as the birthplace of Gen. John J. Pershing, the commanding officer of the American Expeditionary Forces, and Maj. Gen. Enoch Crowder, the primary author of the military draft-and it is an impressive legacy featuring a colorful cast of characters, events, and communities. Missouri was home to two flying aces of the war as well as Bennett Champ Clark, the youngest colonel in the American Expeditionary Forces and the first national commander of the American Legion. During the war, the state was home to farms and ranches that provided an army of mules that assisted Allied forces in hauling critical materials and equipment in the harshest of conditions. Additionally, 156,000 of the state's citizens served in the military with approximately 10,000 wounded or killed in action.

Wilbur and Orville Wright made the world's first successful controlled, heavier-than-air powered flight on December 17, 1903, after four years of glider experiments and scientific study. At what is now the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the brothers discovered and developed the fundamental principles of mechanical flight, setting in motion a series of events that allowed the first generation of flight to travel from Kitty Hawk to the moon in the lifetime of a human being. Located in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, and administered by the National Park Service, the Wright Brothers National Memorial features a full-scale reproduction of the 1903 flying machine, an engine block from the original 1903 flyer, and a precise reproduction of the wind tunnel that the Wrights used to conduct their early experiments. Today, the park's mission is to commemorate the Wrights' success and to interpret the continuing worldwide significance of their dream, vision, and achievement.

Historic Congressional Cemetery dates from the days when Washington, DC, was a burgeoning city on the edge of a malarial swamp.

The stones--sandstone tablets with colonial calligraphy, ornate Victorian statues, 20th-century art nouveau carvings, and contemporary markers in shapes as strange as picnic tables and upended cubes--are a time line of the city. The most distinctive stones are 171 cenotaphs; large cubes designed by Capitol architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe from the same sandstone used in the Capitol. They are found nowhere else. The men and women buried under those stones led lives of beauty, courage, struggle, cunning, leadership, and humor--in short, the stories of American history.

The Camp Dodge military reservation, located northwest of Iowa's capital, Des Moines, has been a community presence in times of war and peace. During World War I, a city serving over 45,000 soldiers sprang up inside its boundaries. As quickly as the army's city was built, it was dismantled, no longer needed at the war's end. The land again became a training area for the Iowa National Guard. The community found a home here too, flocking to one of the world's largest outdoor swimming pools, built in the early 1920s. World War II saw the post processing new soldiers and training the Iowa State Guard, left behind to safeguard the state. Over the years, the camp has heard the pounding of horses' hooves turn to the roar of tanks. Hand-drawn strategy maps have given way to high-tech computer maneuver simulations. Camp Dodge has survived and grown.