Nine-year-old J.T. Riley, of West Deer, is more of a Korean War guy, his favorite keepsake being a set of four Marine Corps caps that his grandfather had given him.

Raymond Beatty, 78, of Franklin Park, is 101 percent World War II, a U.S. Air Force radio mechanic rescued by Japanese fishermen off an island near Osaka. The faded necklace that dangles from his neck are his dog tags. "I never go without it," the retired staff sergeant said. "The only time I take it off is to get a chest X-ray."

		Listen in Hear Staff Writer David Guo and Michael Kraus, curator of Soldiers and Sailors National Military Museum in Oakland, discuss the museum's Foot Locker program.

Then there's Michael Kraus, curator of Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum in Oakland. He was at Northland Public Library in McCandless on Monday night to embark on a maiden voyage: The first time he's done a Foot Locker program on World War I.

"I'm a Civil War historian, so I'm a little out of my league," he said, as he unpacked a doughboy helmet, a gas mask and some of the stiffest, scratchiest wool pants this side of the Argonne forest. "They couldn't have been very comfortable," he said as he passed around the solider trousers.

Now in its fifth year, the museum's Foot Locker program offers schools, libraries and other groups a chance to see things from a soldier's perspective. For a nominal charge, historians such as Mr. Kraus and Tim Neff pack various artifacts, from mess kits to artillery shells, that reflect a soldier's experience.

The program is offered for America's wars from the Civil War to Iraq, said Mr. Neff, the museum's education director. Only rarely do requests such as Northland's come across his desk.

"I'd say, on average, we do three a month. We keep pretty busy," Mr. Neff said. "And I'd say out of that 36 [a year], maybe three or four are for World War I." The most requested, by far, are the Civil War and World War II.

Jane Jubb, adult programs coordinator at Northland, said that was precisely why she chose World War I. "There's lots of stuff done about World War II and the more up-to-date wars. We just thought it'd be interesting to see how the soldiers fared during World War I."

Mr. Neff was happy to oblige, even though it meant more homework.

"I find World War I fascinating because it's the connecting war between the Napoleonic and the modern," he said. "It's really the bridge from the old strategy and the new technology and war that we have today." For instance, rifles with bayonets, such as one Mr. Kraus displayed, shared the battlefield with machine guns.

Referred to as "the war to end all wars," World War I was a fight that an isolationist America desperately tried to avoid, Mr. Kraus told the estimated 20 people at the Northland program. He passed around a copy of a New York Times article from November 1915. It took 15 minutes for the British supply ship Lusitania to be sunk on its way to the United States, taking 120 American lives with it. "That sort of brought it home," Mr. Kraus said, convincing President Woodrow Wilson that the United States could not stay on the sidelines.

One of the highlights of the presentation was Mr. Kraus' recounting of the numerous firsts that occurred during World War I:

Given the threat posed by Germany's use of mustard gas, Allied soldiers were issued gas masks, a basic device with hose, charcoal filter and snorkel mask.

Submarines, machine guns and airplanes took center stage.

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Michael Kraus, right, curator for Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum, jokingly pushes away the barrel of a World War I rifle as J.T. Riley, 9, of West Deer, examines it. Mr. Kraus displayed a foot locker full of items from World War I during a program at Northland Public Library in McCandless. Click photo for larger image.

Pvt. Thomas F. Enright, of Pittsburgh, would become one of the first three American casualties Nov. 3, 1917; the old Enright Theatre in East Liberty was named after him.

American troops used steel helmets, which were first made by the British and the Canadians. "I'm going to pass this around and want you to think if they're bulletproof," Mr. Kraus said, "because they're not."

Aluminum mess kits, not tin, came courtesy of homegrown Alcoa. "It was a huge contract for them," Mr. Kraus said. Soldiers would etch designs on the kits, called trench art, which included work on bullet shells.

Lt. Hermann Goering started his war career in World War I, receiving the Blue Max medal, Germany's version of the Medal of Honor, because he shot down so many of the enemy. One war later, he would become Hitler's right-hand man.

Dog tags made their debut. Unlike the ones from WWII that Mr. Beatty wears, Martin Sullivan's of the 111th Infantry were decorated with leaves from the Argonne forest and were round, which Mr. Beatty suggested might have not been useful during World War II, when the tags were used to identify casualties. "The idea is to put them in your teeth," he said, as he grabbed his own tags to demonstrate. It "holds your mouth open when you die."

None of this seems to rattle young J.T. Riley, who was glad to come with his father, John, to learn about World War I. Having written a school paper on Pearl Harbor, the third-grader at East Union Intermediate School was surprised at the differences between World War I and World War II.

What was the biggest difference? "I'd say it was how we wanted to stay out of World War I," he said. "We waited awhile, not like World War II."