(
Note to all: I'm just having WAY too much fun with the "Commissar Mao tse-Cat" persona to do away with him just yet. Therefore, I am resurrecting OMG with a different account.)
During my research on the 117th Infantry in the Great War, I came across the following dedication in a book called Knox County in the World War edited by 30th Division veteran Captain Resse Amis who had served in the 114th Field Artillery at St. Mihiel and in the Argonne. I found the following passages particularly apt. The author, Roy E. Vale, here speaks of the sons of Knox County who never came back from the “War to End War.” His remarks ring as true today as they did 81 years ago.
- Pat Gang
Knoxville, Tennessee
Memorial Day 2010____________________________________________
The men and women whose names are inscribed herein belong to no ordinary race. The blood of heroes and heroines of other stirring days ran into their veins and felt at home. The mantle of an honorable and glorious past fell upon their shoulders; it has been worn worthily and kept unstained.
No words of mine are needed to enhance the lustre of their fame. They have imprinted on history's most golden page a record of glory in their deeds; and what they have written, they have written. But it is altogether fitting and proper that we pay honor to whom honor is due, and that we should here set down some expression of our great love for and in these men and women.
Sir John Foster Frasier, speaking here in Chatauqua last year (1918), said repeatedly; “There is no glory about war.” the statement is true. When we see troops marching out with polished accouterments and weapons with firm tread and shining eyes, with movement that are measured, virile and precise; when we hear the martial notes of the bugle and patriotic melodies of the band, then our hearts are thrilled and we think of the glory of military life. But when war actually comes, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are loosed.
The men so splendidly accoutered, who went out to war, are called up to battles by the Four Horsemen. Behold them! The shining weapons are broken and rusted. The spick and span uniforms are torn and defiled with mud and the stains of blood. The ranks that once marched four by four with steady tread have great gaps where men have fallen. The faces once filled with health and color are now wan and shrunken, and eyes with deep circles under them blaze out, filled with the fires of anguish and with the horrors of what they have seen. Shot and shell from rifles and great guns whine and burst across the field of war.. Corpses of men and beasts lie putrefying in the sun, unburied because of the haste of battle. Limbs blown from healthy young bodies lie decaying where they fell. There is an insufferable stench over the expanse. It is the breath of the Four Horsemen. Beholding all this desolation and ruin, we agree that there is no glory about war.
Yet there is glory, resplendent glory, upon the heroism of men willing amidst such scenes to risk their own lives for the sake of right. There is glory, radiant glory, upon the sacrifices patriotic men and women have made that war shall not come again and that Freedom shall not die.
Honor to whom honor is due! For our gallant fighting men we have no words of praise too high.
Most sacred of all to us are those who sleep beneath the Flag, having poured out for it their last full measure of devotion. Very tender is our thought of the fathers and mothers and wives who have given their sons and husbands on Freedom's altar. Their grief is too holy to intrude upon. If we do not often speak of it, it is only because we would not tear their heart wounds afresh. But their boys are held in our everlasting love.
Let it be our high privilege to see to it that the nation whose destiny they have preserved shall maintain inviolate the liberties made secure at such a price. May no force, without or within, be permitted to trample upon our gift of Freedom. In all our ways may we acknowledge Him who brought us to this hour, as we humbly believe, to accomplish justice for mankind.
- Roy E. Vale
Knoxville, Tennessee
July 2, 1919
The American Cemetery at Bony, France. This cemetery was established in 1918 after the assault on the Hindenburg Line by the 27th Division (NY National Guard) and the 30th Division (TN, NC and SC National Guard regiments). 1844 doughboys sleep there.
