Firstly, my apologies for being absent the past several weeks. I was on temporary duty to Camp Pendleton, where I gave a history lecture to the 1st Battalion, 4th Marines. They are a unit that takes great pride in their history and it was nothing short of an AMAZING experience (which I will write about at a later date). I also took the opportunity to interview veterans of a Vietnam-era helicopter squadron.  Although I had originally planned a really interesting piece for Halloween, and another to commemorate the 236th birthday of the Corps, life (also known as a very nasty flu bug) got in the way…and so I shelved those until next year and started thinking about Veteran’s Day.

On 28 June 1914, a young Bosnian-Serb student, Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo. Suspecting involvement by the Serbian government, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to the Serbian government. Dissatisfied with the response to its ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declared war on 28 July 1914. Russia, bound by treaty with Serbia, began mobilization of its Army one day later. Germany, bound by treaty to Austria-Hungary, viewed the mobilization as an act of war and declared war against Russia on 1 August. France, also bound by treaty to Russia found itself at war with both Germany and Austria-Hungary. Great Britain, allied to France by a loosely worded treaty, declared war on 4 August…and thus began the “war to end all wars.”

British troops in the trenches, early 1917

Official US policy was one of absolute neutrality…and that policy would remain in effect until April 1917 when President Woodrow Wilson outlined the case for declaring war with Germany in a speech to Congress. A formal declaration of war followed that speech on 6 April. The Yanks were going “Over There.”

This recruiting poster declared that the U.S. Marines were “First to Fight.”

On 27 June, 1917, elements of the 5th Marine Regiment docked at St. Nazaire, France, and passed to American Expeditionary Forces control, assigned to the Army’s 1st Division.  Over the course of the next 18 months, Marines fought at Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry, Soissons, Blanc Mont and the Meuse-Argonne. These names were burned into the collective memory of the Corps.

This painting by Frederick C. Yohn is entitled Last Night of the War, and depicts the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines crossing the Meuse River. Courtesy of the Marine Corps Art Collection

Daylight dawned on 11 November 1918. At 0605, General John A. Lejeune received a radio message from Marshall Ferdinand Foch stating that all hostilities would stop on the entire front beginning at 1100, 11 November. The message was confirmed two hours later. Colonel Logan Feland, commanding the 5th Marine Regiment sent the following message: “All firing will cease at 1100AM today. Hold every inch of ground that you have gained including that gained by patrols. Send as soon as possible, a sketch showing positions of all units at 1100.”

Colonel Logan Feland, seen here as a brigadier general, commanded the 5th Marines

Colonel Feland ordered the 5th Marines to cease fire at 1100, 11 November 1918

During the final two hours before the armistice went into effect, German artillery fire intensified. A few minutes before 1100 there was a tremendous burst of fire from both sides….then silence. Said Private Elton Mackin, Navy Cross recipient, and author of Suddenly We Didn’t Want to Die, “Silence laid a pall on everything. In the twinkling of the eye four years of killing and massacre stopped as if God had swept his omnipotent finger across the scene of world carnage and cried ‘Enough!”

During the course of “The War to End all Wars”, the United States sustained some 257,404 casualties, of whom 53, 402 died. The United States Marine Corps had 11,366 casualties, of whom 2,459 were killed in action or forever missing.

“Armistice Day”, as 11 November came to be called, was first proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919. Universal recognition was given to those who fought in “The War to End All Wars” in 1921. An American soldier, “known but to God,” was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. This unknown soldier became the personification of dignity and reverence for America’s veterans. Similar ceremonies occurred in Great Britain and France, where unknown soldiers were buried at Westminster Abbey and the Arc d’Triumphe. Each of these ceremonies took place on 11 November. The day was officially recognized by Congressional resolution in 1926, and became a national holiday 12 years later.

The funeral procession of the soldier “known but to God”

Idealistic hope that it was “the War to End All Wars” was dashed when the Second World War broke out in Europe. Sixteen and a half million Americans took part and more than 416,000 died. Five years after the surrender of Axis forces, war broke out on the Korean peninsula. How would Americans pay tribute to those who had given their lives in these conflicts? The solution was put forth by Representative Edwin K. Rees: Make 11 November a day to honor those who have served America in all wars. In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill proclaiming 11 November as Veteran’s Day, and called for all Americans to honor those who have served and to dedicate themselves to the cause of peace…and with the stroke of a pen the memory of American sacrifices in World War I was largely erased, destined to fade from memory.

I understand the reasoning behind this change, and  I am very grateful that we have a day to honor those who have served…but on Veteran’s Day I always think of those who served (including my grandfather and his brothers) in World War I. I am reminded of the sacrifices of Marines at Belleau Wood, Chateau-Thierry, Soissons, Blanc Mont and the Muesse-Argonne.…and then, in the spirit of the day, I am reminded of those who served at Tarawa, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima. I think of those who landed at Inchon, fought their way through the streets of Seoul….and those who battled in the jungles of Vietnam, and the mountains of Afghanistan.  It breaks my heart to think that this day, of all days, is largely forgotten, or ignored by our younger generations, and has become little more to many people than a day of sales at the local mall. We, as a nation, are less for that.

There are times when words escape me…when I cannot put to paper that which I truly feel. Earlier this week, I came across an article written in 1989 by LtGen Bernard Trainor, USMC (Retired). He seemed to capture, in words far more eloquent than those I could put to paper, my feelings about Veteran’s Day….and so I will allow his words to speak for me:

“Veteran’s Day is a shroud. It is a piece of blood-drenched canvas tossed over the eviscerated remains of somebody you vaguely knew, but are reluctant to see in disemboweled form. It is an opportunity to speak well of him and those who were next to him when a machine gun, mine, or mortar shell turned him to jelly. He didn’t choose to die, and his companions count themselves lucky that he and not they are under the gory canvas. Whether his cause was noble or misguided makes little difference. He did not do what he chose to do, but what he had no other choice but doing. Honoring him on Veteran’s Day, or Armistice Day as it was called in the years after the First World War, allows those who survived or avoided the ordeal of military service to fulfill a civilized impulse to honor those who endured a trial by fire. It eulogizes those who were unlucky enough or clumsy enough to get themselves killed….Except for next of kin who received the chilling news, “we regret to inform you…” and those who in advancing age have come to terms with their own mortality and reflect on the import of the event they celebrate, few in the country today give more than a perfunctory nod to the significance of the day as they hurry to shopping malls to take advantage of Veterans Day sales….For the fraction who ended up on the sharp edge of the military sword where discomfort, anxiety, and downright terror of war was a wearisome and distasteful experience, Veteran’s Day is a vague thanksgiving reminder that they survived. But for both the surviving combat veteran and the company clerk who kept score on the mechanics of war, the vision of the bloody canvas covering the dead is present along with the uneasy and unanswerable question: Why him and not me? What would be the reply if we lifted the bloody shroud and asked the remains how he felt about dying in one of America’s wars? Would his answer be any different of that than living veterans, most of whom are proud of their service? He would probably say he would have preferred to explore options other than death. But, being a realist, he would accept his fate as the price of doing what he thought was right. More than likely he would ask about his friends and the outcome of the fight in which he lost his life-not the national outcome of the struggle, but the fortunes of his squad or company. If he was told that his friends survived and his unit did what was expected of it, he would think that was enough to make his sacrifice worthwhile….Whether it was Belleau Wood, Normandy, Inchon, Khe Sanh, or the countless other battles fought as part of the American experience, the soldiers that fought them are the same as the rest of their countrymen, except it fell to them to do the fighting.”

The casket carrying the unknown soldier is lowered into the steel vault of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, coming to rest atop soil brought from the battlefields of France.

General Trainor wrote this article in 1989, before the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, before the longs wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Today, after ten years of war, his words still ring true. Unfortunately, we face a growing chasm in this country between those who have served and those who have not. Less than ten percent of the population has ever served in the military. Less than one percent of the population currently serves in the military, and it is they, and their families who bear the burden for an entire nation. Much of the 99 percent remains blissfully ignorant of the sacrifices they endure, and the number of people who have absolutely NO knowledge or connection to the military grows ever larger.  I fear that Veteran’s Day will become ever more hollow, marked only by those with military ties, largely forgotten by an apathetic population that does not know and does not care.

A funeral procession at Arlington National Cemetery

 On 11 November 1963, General David M. Shoup, Commandant of the Marine Corps, spoke at Arlington National Cemetery. He asked those gathered,

“Why do we have armed forces? Because with bowed heads we face the disheartening and distasteful fact that after many centuries of so-called civilization, man has been unable to prevent the killing of men, women and children in war….We cannot practice the deception that somehow, without alertness and conscious effort on our part, an everlasting panacea may develop which will abolish for all time man’s oldest plague-war. But for past wars, these heroic veterans would not lie here. They served their country well. They earned their place in history. They are enshrined in the heart of America….The freedom we cherish, the Constitution we support, the rights we hold so dear, we owe to them.”  

There is no doubt that those who have served this country, and their families, have EARNED the respect they are given on 11 November. Only time will tell if they continue to receive that respect. Let us hope this country does not forget their sacrifices.

The Vietnam Memorial at night

**For more information on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, please see the following article, written by my colleague, Ms. Kara Newcomer: http://www.tecom.usmc.mil/HD/PDF_Files/Pubs/Fortitudine/Fortitudine%20Vol%2036%20No%202.pdf