Please help with categories for John Lutz who was killed in World War One.

Question

Private First Class John Edward Lutz died of wounds received while fighting in World War One. He was serving with the 108th Infantry, Company G, and passed away October 27, 1918.

Please help honor this solider with the proper categories and templates.

Thank you!

Sharon Centanne

Answer 1

To add the template for unit.

{{World War I|United States Army| |G Co. 108th Infantry|October 27, 1918}}

If you know his enlistment date, place it between the | | between US Army and G. Co. 108th.

I also added the Roll of Honor since he died of wounds, which means that he was killed in combat, even if he survived the initial action, but later died of those wounds inflicted.

{{Roll of Honor
|category=Killed in Action, United States of America, World War I
|image=Roll of Honor Template-15.jpg
|description=Killed in Action
|country=United States of America
|war=World War I
}}

Answer 2

I added The Great War tag and Category: Died in Military Service, United States of America, World War I.

Comments

Thank you, but I understand the Great War category is no longer used? Does anyone know how to add the 108th Infantry, Company G?

Thanks again!

Sharon

---

I added his unit, you should now see a little box to the right of his biography that states his unit, and what day he was "discharged" or in this case what day he died.

Answer 3

{{The Great War}} is a project box template, there are other requirements that must be met before adding it.  {{World War I}} is the template (was a recognition box, now it is a sticker) is the correct one to use to identify wartime service. I added |unit=108th Infantry Regiment to that so he is added to the unit category for the regiment

[[Category: Died in Military Service, ..., ...]] is for non-battle, died of disease deaths, such as heart attack, vehicle accident, training mishap, etc.  We have categories for Died of Wounds to indicate they were wounded due to enemy actions and died shortly afterwards from those wounds, normally after receiving medical aid, i switched the category to that.

Andretta...

you added a Roll of Honor template (as Killed in Acton instead of Died of Wounds) which is not the same as adding to the Roll of Honor, which is a free space page https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Died_in_Military_Service with DW (Died of Wounds) in the Other field.

Comments

So I may not be understanding the difference between died of wounds and killed in action.  Wouldn't you be killed in action if you were shot, then died from being shot, just not on the battle field, but let's say in the ambulance on the way to the medic tent?  
 

I guess my question is what is the time delay between "Died of Wounds" or "Killed in Action"?

---

not so much a specific amount of time, instead it is more of sequence of events.

KIA is immediate death on a battlefield, or in cases of a ship/plane overdue and presumed lost, often the entire crew would first be classified MIA, then after a period of time/searches, changed to KIA.

Died of wounds is for those that survived the initial combat wound, but died shortly afterward, usually after receiving medical aid, as a result of those wounds.  this gets into a gray area of what constitutes shortly afterward....

if being treated in the field by a combat medic, or getting first aid by a fellow soldier and died, KIA seems appropriate.

if transported to a field medical unit and died after receiving medical care from the doctors/surgeons, that falls more under Died of Wounds since that means it has been hours/days since they were wounded.

the gray area comes into play when someone was wounded and left on the field, dying hours later with or without some kind of medical aid.  for instance, the unit was under fire and no one could get to the wounded to aid/evacuate them, a patrol was isolated and location/status unknown, etc.

in a lot of cases, we do not have to make the distinction, we use whatever status is given by that service/government when recording the death of the service member. for instance, we do not make a distinction between killed in action and killed by friendly fire.