FIRST SOLDIER: What is over 15-feet high and made of bronze? The answer is the Doughboy statue, situated at the entrance to Lawrenceville, one of Pittsburgh’s neighborhoods. The distinctive statue of a World War I soldier — also known as a doughboy — has stood for almost a century and honors the war dead, including the city’s native son, Thomas F. Enright, believed to be the first soldier to die in the Great War.

Tim Ziaukas, professor of public relations at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford who grew up in Lawrenceville, wrote the cover story about the monument for Pennsylvania History’s summer edition.

The young soldier has a place in history, but he has been largely forgotten, Ziaukas said, adding that he deserves to be remembered.

Enright, a member of the 16th regiment, Company F under Gen. John J. Pershing, died in France in 1917, the first of three American soldiers killed Nov. 2, 1917, by German soldiers. Ziaukas writes that the Pennsylvania native put up a fight, his wounds serving as proof that “he guarded the trench with his life.”

Enright and the two other Americans who died that night became posthumous heroes. Their faces were used on Red Cross fund-raising posters along with the words, “The First Three! … Give till It Hurts—they gave til they died!”

Ziaukas said, “The country was shocked by these first deaths, and Enright’s neighborhood was devastated.”

Enright’s hometown wanted to honor him and other casualties after the war ended in 1918, so it raised $10,000 for the monument and commissioned famed New York sculptor Allen G. Newman to create it. Michelangelo’s David was the artist’s inspiration — a common man in heroic pose.

On May 30, 1921, on Decoration Day weekend, the statue was unveiled before 20,000 people.

Ziaukas writes, “While not cast by Newman to catch Enright’s likeness, the face of the soldier was a raw reminder of their lost son or brother, neighbor or friend.”

It was a statue meant to commemorate all doughboys, Ziaukas said, but the locals couldn’t help thinking of Enright.

Within two months of the unveiling, Pvt. Enright’s remains were exhumed in France and returned to Pittsburgh. He was laid to rest in St. Mary’s Cemetery in Lawrenceville.

“Pvt. Enright was our first Pennsylvanian hero in the Great War, and November marks the centenary of his sacrifice,” Ziaukas said. “We should remember him.”