The Italians themselves made him the first journalist, Italian or foreign, to win an Italian War Cross, for valor he showed when ambushed with some Italian soldiers in Ethiopia.

Novelist Ernest Hemingway, at just 18 years old, was wounded on the Italian front while driving an ambulance for the American Red Cross on this day in history, July 8, 1918.

By World War One, VOV's reputation as a health drink was cemented enough that it was prescribed to soldiers with the approval of the Red Cross.