My paternal grandfather was Combat Engineer in world war 1 and from what I could gather from him before he passed in 1981, saw a lot of action.
He was quiet the character and was not afraid to pronounce his hated of the English and always said the US was fighting the wrong side! Of course my families German heritage probably played a part of that but he was in frequent fist fights with British soldiers even getting busted in rank after one altercation. From what I could recall he had befriended a Belgian soldier and one day they came upon a troop of British soldiers dragging a Belgian flag through the mud. Without hesitation Grandpa (a NCO at that point) and his buddy got into with the Brits and was holding his own until some officers showed up to end the fun.
After that event, as punishment he was assigned to a burial detail and had to strip dead bodies of their uniforms and equipment. He was one of 4 guys on that detail and each one got very sick, with respiratory problems (most likely due to gas and other bacteria impregnating into the uniforms ). One after one ,as each guy got sick, they went into surgery and as treatment had their adenoids (maybe tonsils, not sure which it was) removed. After surgery, each of the first three soldiers came down with fever and died. Not long after Grandpa also got very sick and the Battalion surgeon determined that he too would get his adenoids removed. Grandpa said "Hell no!" and refused treatment. I'm still not sure how he pulled that off but knowing him he probably threatened to shoot someone.
. Well, he suffered through his infection and survived.
He did talk once about what it was liked to get strafed and said he never felt so helpless (or scared) in all of his life.
I regret that I was never able to really talk to him about his experiences in more detail but have managed to piece together a lot from other relatives and what records I could unearth.
Madmatt