Veterans Day has been set aside in recent years to honor living U.S. military veterans, but of course its roots are in Armistice Day, commemorating the ceasefire that ended World War I on Nov. 11, 1918.
We're hearing more about that this year because 2021 also is the centennial year of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. The photo here was taken earlier in the week when for the first time in many decades tomb visitors were allowed to approach and deposit flowers.
Chariton's Veterans Day observance will begin at 10:30 a.m. at Lucas County Veterans Memorial Park and somewhat unexpectedly I ended up as a speaker on the program, asked to talk a little about Lucas County's war record but mostly about the history of the tomb.
Here's the text of what I plan to say:
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I’ll begin this morning by reading a brief article headlined “The Nameless Soldier” that was published in The Chariton Herald-Patriot of Nov. 17, 1921, an article that the forebears of many of us gathered here today would have read, too:
“We shall probably never know who the soldier hero, brought back from France and buried in the national cemetery at Arlington on Armistice Day, really was.
“From four American cemeteries in France, four bodies, all unknown, were taken and the caskets were placed in a chapel at City Hall in Chalons-et-Champagne. Then Sergeant Edward F. Younger, of the American Army, went in alone with a bouquet of roses and placed it upon one chosen at random. This was the casket brought back to be interred in American soil, though some of the earth from the cemetery in which the slain soldier was first laid to rest was brought with the body and the soils of the two lands were mingled together as the casket was lowered the second time.
‘In the Chapel at Chalons the casket was covered in the flowers of the French and American allies. French mothers who had given sons in the great war wept, and many knelt in prayer about the bier.”
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A total of 740 young men from Lucas County served during World War I and 26 died --- eight in combat, the remainder of disease, most of what was called the “Spanish” flu. Eleven died before leaving the United States, the remainder in France. For Iowa as a whole, 114,000 served and 3,500 died.
After the war ended, the United States repatriated the remains of its dead when asked by families to do so. Pvt. William B. Pulley, buried in the Derby Cemetery on Oct. 3, 1920, was the first to come home; Pvt. Roy Tickel, buried at Newbern on Dec. 21, 1921, was the last.
Two of our young men still are buried in France --- Pvt. Fred A. Culbertson and Pvt. Oshea Strain.
When all was said and done in Europe, the bodies of approximately 3,000 American combatants remained unidentified, buried in four American cemeteries there as “unknown.”
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The idea for tombs commemorating the unidentified dead originated in the United Kingdom and France, both of which had sustained losses many times greater than those of the Americans. France, it is estimated, lost 1,327,000 men during World War I; Britain, 900,000. Total U.S. deaths were estimated at 117,000. Unlike the Americans, governments of both France and Britain forbade the repatriation of remains. Their nations had been devastated by the war; there were more pressing concerns.
And so on Armistice Day 1920, the British Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was dedicated in London’s Westminster Abbey and the French Tomb, at the base of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. These were gestures of remembrance for both the unidentified and identified dead buried far from home.
Planning for something similar at Arlington Nation Cemetery commenced soon thereafter.
An unknown soldier was selected as described in that newspaper article, transported to the United States aboard the U.S.S. Olympia, then lay in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol until Armistice Day 1921.
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A few words about that Armistice Day might be in order. In Chariton, plans had been developed for what was intended to be the largest and most elaborate program yet --- a massive morning parade and an afternoon program on the courthouse grounds.
Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate and several of those plans were derailed by an overnight snowstorm that left the ground covered and temperatures that plummeted into the high teens.
The weather in Washington, D.C., was more cooperative and hundreds of thousands lined the parade route to Arlington. Unfortunately, faulty planning by organizers resulted in the biggest traffic jam the capitol ever had seen as those hundreds of thousands tried to make their way to the cemetery for the ceremonial interment.
The limousine carrying President Warren G. Harding had to detour through a plowed field in order to reach Arlington. Iowa’s own Herbert Hoover, then secretary of commerce, had to climb over two hedges and jump a ditch in order to reach the cemetery.
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Once all of the dignitaries were in place, the interment proceeded as planned in a relatively simple grave covered by stone slabs.
The tomb as we know it today --- a massive block of carved marble bearing among other things the inscription, “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God,” was completed during 1932 atop the 1921 grave and remains unchanged.
During 1958, the remains of unknown soldiers from World War II and the Korean War were selected in a random manner similar to that employed when selecting the World War I solder and they were interred in crypts west of the tomb on May 30th of that year after they, too, lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda.
During 1984, unidentified remains of a Vietnam War soldier were designated and after Memorial Day ceremonies similar to those of earlier years were interred in a crypt dug between those of the unknowns from Korea and World War II.
Ten years later, however, a civilian investigator determined that these remains probably were those of Air Force 1st Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, shot down near An Loc, Vietnam during 1972. A positive identification was made using DNA testing in 1998 and at his family’s request, his body was reinterred at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery, St. Louis.
Since then, the third crypt has remained empty to commemorate the approximately 1,600 Vietnam War military personnel still unaccounted for.
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Listen to a few words from the address President Warren G. Harding delivered at Arlington National Cemetery a century ago today:
“Standing today on hallowed ground, conscious that all America has halted to share in the tribute of heart and mind and soul to this fellow-American, and knowing that the world is noting this expression of the Republic’s mindfulness, it is fitting to say that his sacrifice, and that of the millions of the dead, shall not be in vain. There must be, there shall be, the commanding voice of a conscious civilization against armed warfare.
“As we return this poor clay to its mother soil, garlanded by love and covered with the decorations that only nations can bestow, I can sense the prayers of our people, of all peoples, that this Armistice Day shall mark the beginning of a new and lasting era of peace on earth and good will among men.”
Grand words and noble goals. Sadly, they remain only aspirations.
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