What we could do
This 1919 book written by the Army Signal Corps gives a complete picture of what the Corps was doing in WW1. Shows how our military could basically build an entire national infrastructure in one year.

We officially entered WW1 in the spring of 1917, and it was over in Nov 1918. During that short time, the Signal Corps developed and deployed hundreds of different telegraph, telephone, radio, pigeon, and dog systems for ground, mobile and aircraft use; built telegraph and telephone systems across France; and trained thousands of telegraphers, telephone linemen, pigeon handlers, and phone operators. All of this in the middle of a raging war, all in 18 months.

A warehouse and repair facility:


A detachment of Telephone Girls arriving in France:


Some of the Telephone Girls at work in France:


Specialized trailer for pigeons:


And a special gas-mask bag to protect pigeons from Kraut gas attacks!


Details. Unbelievably dense details, all carefully put together under enemy fire to form a quick victory.

Couldn't happen now. Equity raider Rumsfeld Partners LLC ran a hostile takeover in 2001 and stripped all these productive facilities out of the military, leaving a lean mean profit machine for Rumsfeld Partners LLC, saddled with enormous debts owed to Rumsfeld Partners LLC.

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Sidenote: I'd always had the impression that WW1 was like WW2: it was a total war in the countries that were involved, though the list of countries was much shorter than WW2. My impression was wrong. This book shows the Army operating in a more or less civilized way through France, even after Germany and France had been fighting HARD for two years. They were able to land people at various ports without interference, able to build massive facilities without instant destruction. So WW1 simply wasn't a total war, except maybe in the last six months. WW2 was the first, and so far the only, total war.
  ¶ 5:23 AM