More than 14,000 New Mexicans served in uniform during World War I, and thousands more contributed to the American home front. Yet today in New Mexico, as elsewhere, the Great War and the lives it affected are scarcely remembered. Lest We Forget confronts that amnesia. The first detailed study to describe New Mexico's wartime mobilization, its soldiers' combat experiences, and its veterans' postwar lives, the book offers a poignant account of the profound changes these Americans underwent both during and after the war.
By focusing on New Mexico, historian David V. Holtby underscores the challenges New Mexicans faced as they rallied support at home, served in Europe, and came home as veterans. Income disparity, gender divisions, political factionalism, and conflict between rural and urban lifeways all affected the war and its aftermath. Holtby shows how New Mexico responded to these problems even as it coped with federal action and inaction.