Menoher served in Cuba and the Philippines during the
Spanish–American War. He later graduated from the
Army War College and was selected for the original General Staff Corps, where he served from 1903 to 1907. He was commander of the
5th Field Artillery Regiment from 1916 to 1917. He was still in command of the regiment until late August 1917, almost five months after the
American entry into World War I, when, earlier that month, he received a promotion to the temporary rank of brigadier general and was sent to
France to take command of the
American Expeditionary Forces's (AEF) School of Instruction, Field Artillery, located in
Saumar. Menoher held this post until mid-December when he was selected by General
John J. Pershing, commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the AEF and a West Point classmate, to succeed Major General
William A. Mann as
commanding general (CG) of the
42nd "Rainbow" Division. He would remain in command of the 42nd for the next 10 months, commanding the division throughout almost all of its period of combat service on the
Western Front, participating in the Champagne-Marne offensive and in the successful Allied offensives of Saint Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne. In November, Menoher was succeeded in command of the 42nd by Brigadier General
Douglas MacArthur, formerly the division's chief of staff but now commanding its 84th Infantry Brigade, in this position. As the war was coming to an end, Menoher was placed in command of the
VI Corps (United States). He was promoted to
major general in March 1921. Requesting an assignment with troops, Menoher then took command of the
Hawaiian Division in 1922 before taking over the entire Hawaiian Department. After this, he commanded the IX Corps Area in San Francisco until his mandatory retirement on March 20, 1926. ==Personal life==