A Wyoming author and historian says about 12,000 Wyoming residents volunteered to fight in the First World War.

Mike Kassell says that while that may not sound like a huge number, it was roughly seven percent of the state's population at the time. All but a little over 400 of the Wyoming volunteers made it home safely after the war.

Kassel is the Curator and Associate Director of the Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum in Cheyenne. In a Friday morning appearance on KGAB radio in Cheyenne, Kassell said that prior to the United States' entry into the war, there was little enthusiasm for the country getting into a ''European" war.

But he says once America got into the war, attitudes changed quickly. You can hear the full interview with Kassell in the audio attached to this article.

The 100th anniversary of the armistice that ended World War I is Sunday (Nov.11).

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