fairly late in life i found out my grandfather on my dad's side had served in WWI on the German side ans an alpine ski trooper. Our family hails for Slovakia which was who knows what country at that time.... He was wounded in the Italian alps. After that it got a bit murky. I was told he made sure his wound stayed infected in the hospital because otherwise he would have ended up on the western front. Other stories were that he was captured at some point and finished the war as a POW. What isn't disputed is that after the war, he worked back home as a surveyor and a guy took exception to his survey and came at him. Grandpaw threw a punch and the guy went down dead. That night the local policeman came to the house and warned him he would be arrested in the morning so Grandpaw took the hint, bundled the family up (just wife and my dad age 2 0r 3 or so ) and headed to the border. They got to France and came over to the USA, landing in Philadelphia. My dad always claimed he had his pet dog with him he came. is that possible?