Fathers Don't Just Protect-They Prepare

My grandfather was born in 1882 in the small Ukrainian town of Zawale, which was part of the vast, multiethnic Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1914, this mega-state, like so many European nations, threw itself into a world war with frenzied enthusiasm. My grandfather later told my father how puzzled he had been to watch thousands of happy young men-really still just boys-boarding trains in Vienna, cheering as they went off to what was almost certainly their death. He did not volunteer, he avoided conscription, and he survived.