Latif Nasser

So what is the foundation story of all this?

That starts with General Pershing in World War I.

So 1917.

The Great War ramps up.

So we start shipping young men.

specifically france and in charge of these men was a man named john jay commander of american forces on the western front stern man handsome mustache a bit of a maverick general pershing's nickname was was blackjack and uh when he first arrives in france with his troops general blackjack pershing he's got this problem which is that he has jeeps built in america shipped to france

So World War I is the first war in which the U.S.

is shipping a lot of automobiles.

More than 100,000.

For the soldiers to drive cars, trucks, jeeps.

And jeeps are really great.

They get his men from one place to another.

From Paris to Amiens to, I don't know, Marseille.

But they also run into French farmers' chickens and cows, children, sometimes just the farmers themselves.

Mm-hmm.

Were these random collisions or were there no roads?

I'm going to bet there was some of everything.

Sometimes it was probably just ordinary car accidents.

And sometimes, no doubt, a little French wine was involved.

So this is Pershing's problem.