Alfonso James Calac was born at Valley Center, California, October 30, 1892. He was an Indian boy of the Mission tribe in San Diego County, California, and received his education at the Indian Industrial School at Riverside in the same state. While attending school Alfonzo fitted himself to be a blacksmith, to which training he applied himself diligently. He was always a trusted worker wherever employed. On the 2d of October, 1917, he left his position in the Santa Fe shops at Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada, to enter the army at Camp Lewis. He served in the 132d Company, 33d Battalion, 166th Depot Brigade, until October 25th, then transferred to Company C, 362d Infantry, 91st Division. He was made a Private, First Class, on September 1, 1918.

The 91st Division went overseas in July, and a month later was in reserve at the Battle of St. Mihiel (September 12-13). On September 26th the Ninety-First jumped off with the Meuse-Argonne line in the vicinity of the Bois de Cheppy. They swept through the Bois, took the towns of Epinonville and Eclisfontaine, and on the 29th of the
month, “Bloody Sunday,” stormed the village of Gesnes. The advance of the 91st had been so rapid that other divisions on its flanks, retarded as they were by the nature of the country assigned to them and the desperate defense of the enemy, were unable to cover as much territory as the former, and could not advance their lines so fall to the northward in the same space of time. As a result, the 91st was ordered to drop back from Gesnes to a line a little to the southward, which it did, falling back over the ground for which it had paid so dearly.
Alfonzo Calac gave his life on the field that day (September 29, 1918) near Gesnes in the battle which took some of our finest American troops, from us forever.

He left surviving him his father and mother, Felix and Dolores Calac, his brother, Joseph, and his sister, Amada, all of Escondido, California.