It came almost 100 years late, but William Rehborg was remembered and recognized for his service to his country last week.
His grandson, Jon Rehborg, met with Congressman Paul Gosar [R-District 4] Thursday, Nov. 12, in the lobby of the Verde Valley Medical Center.
Gosar was there to present Jon Rehborg with a World War I Victory Medal that his grandfather had earned due to his service.
For whatever reason, William Rehborg never received his medal, awarded to those who participated in the conflict.
William Rehborg served in the U.S. Army and was shipped off to Europe in World War I where he was near the trenches.
Trench warfare defined the conflict as technological advances refined how battles were fought, with soldiers facing the horrors of chemical warfare and machine guns.
Casualties were inflicted on a scale not seen before that point in history.
It was the “war to end all wars.”
The war lasted from 1914 to 1918. America joined European allies on the battlefield against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the Western front in 1917.
Rehborg survived the war but has since passed away, as have all veterans who fought in that war.
The last living combat veteran of the war died more than four years ago at age 110.
While William Rehborg didn’t have his medal, his service was well known to his family.
Jon Rehborg brought pictures of his grandfather as a young man in uniform.
Those men, the 88th Infantry Division, were recruited from around Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and the Dakotas.
“They just didn’t have the paper trail,” Jon Rehborg said of the government, who didn’t have the documentation needed to give out a medal to his grandfather.
His grandfather on his mother’s side, Art Rupp, also fought in the war, Rehborg said. Rupp’s paperwork was all on file.
Jon Rehborg also brought in some of William Rehborg’s “paperwork” in the form of a map, nearly a century old, that the soldier carried with him near the front lines.
The map is remarkably well preserved, divided up in paper sections mounted on a cloth backing for folding.
The map shows a detailed drawing of the roads, towns and villages that dotted the countryside, along with reminders about how close to the front soldiers have to be before getting their gas masks, or “box respirators,” ready for possible use.
The map also had similar reminders for when to put gas masks on the horses; the animals were still widely used in the war.
A staff member in Gosar’s office, Larry Rankin, found out about Jon Rehborg’s effort to get his grandfather a medal and set things into motion.
Gosar met Rehborg at the hospital because he was attending a breakfast organized by the Cottonwood Chamber of Commerce in the building.
Gosar said that so far his office has been able to provide four medals to recognize the service of former military.
“This is the first one we’ve done for World War I,” Gosar said.
Gosar also gave Rehborg tips on how to best preserve those old pictures and artifacts so that they will last.
The medal itself calls the conflict “The Great War for Civilization” and lists the nations the United States was allied with on the back. Winged Victory is on the front, armed with sword and shield.
“I’m so happy we were able to do this for my grandfather,” Rehborg said.
Tracking down the information to get his grandfather’s medal took a couple of years of research and effort, Rehborg said.
It all started when Rehborg found that map of the front lines packed away in storage after a family member died.
