Commanding Fire is one officer's story of commanding a machine gun platoon on the battlefields of northern France in 1918. Included are firsthand company and battalion accounts making it the first published history of the 151st Machine Gun Battalion, 42nd Rainbow Division. Every significant American engagement in World War I is covered including action in Lorraine, Champagne, Chateau-Thierry, St. Mihiel, Meuse-Argonne, and service in the Army of Occupation. Lieutenant Parkinson recounts defense and attack, trench and open warfare, night and day operations, waiting and marching, monotony and terror, daily life and deadly action. He traces the development of machine gun tactics and tells previously unknown stories about the Rainbow Division and one of its brigade commanders, Douglas MacArthur.

Lieutenant N.P. Parkinson (1890-1978) commanded a machine gun platoon in the 151st Machine Gun Battalion through all the major fighting of the 42nd Rainbow Division in 1918. Joel R. Parkinson is the grandson of Lieutenant Parkinson and the Director and Curator of the World War History & Art Museum in Alliance, Ohio.