Best remembered as the nineteenth commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, Clifton B. Cates began his long and distinguished military career as a second lieutenant in World War I. In I Will Hold: The Story of USMC Legend Clifton B. Cates, From Belleau Wood to Victory in the Great War (NAL, 2016), journalist and author James Carl Nelson recounts Cates’ early life and service in the war. Cates was studying to take the Tennessee bar when the United States joined the war in April 1917, an event which led Cates to set aside his studies and answer the call to service. After training in the rapidly-expanding Marine Corps, Cates was sent to France in January 1918, and within a few short months he found himself at the heart of combat at the battle of Belleau Wood. Despite being in the thick fighting, Clifton escaped serious injury, and with his unit he participated in the Soissons offensive later that summer. Nelson’s book offers a look at the war Cates fought against the Germans, one in which he demonstrated his natural leadership skills and won some of the highest honors our nation could bestow.

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