nygrule56

OK YES!  Got it to work.  The first thing I did was learn what comment and uncommented lines actually mean.  Then I did these steps because there were some differences between the arch linux solutions and debian.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure lightdm
sudo groupadd -r autologin
sudo gpasswd -a YOURUSERNAME autologin
sudo nano /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf
In the lightdm.conf file there is a section called [Seat:*].  I uncommented (activated) these lines:
[Seat:*]
pam-service=lightdm
pam-autologin-service=lightdm-autologin
autologin-user=username
autologin-user-timeout=0
autologin-session=
What I did to retrieve the session type was 
echo $DESKTOP_SESSION
 
Overall, not as easy as flipping a switch but it was a good learning experience.  I'm not sure if there are any unnecessary steps here but it is working as it should.
Thank you, Werner for pointing me in the right direction!