Smithsonian Journeys Experts

Robert J. Dalessandro is an American historian and author who has written and presented extensively on the American Expeditionary Forces contributions to the First World War.

Dalessandro is a retired Colonel in the U.S. Army and the Deputy Secretary of the American Battle Monuments Commission He is former Director of the United States Army Center of Military History at Fort Lesley J. McNair, Washington, D.C. Dalessandro frequently leads battlefield tours to sites in the United States, France and Italy.

Dalessandro is widely published on the lifeways and material culture of the American Soldier in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. He is co-author of the Organization and Insignia of the American Expeditionary Forces, 1917–1923, he serves as editor of the Army Officer’s Guide, co-author of Willing Patriots: Men of Color in the First World War, and Contributions of African American Soldiers and the American Lions: the 332nd Infantry Regiment in Italy in World War I.

His book, Organization and Insignia of the American Expeditionary Forces, 1917–1923 received the Army Historical Foundation award for excellence in writing.