ORAC
13th Oct 2018, 07:41
Apologies, not aviation related. Reading the article it just seemed to me that perhaps those able should give the cemeteries a visit this month, just to let them know they aren’t forgotten by those here in Europe.
https://streetwiseprofessor.com/the-apotheosis-of-an-american-army-the-meuse-argonne-100-years-ago/
The Meuse-Argonne: 100 Years Ago
”.......But today, the centennial is passing almost completely unnoticed. Where else but here are you reading about it?
In the aftermath of the war, the federal government, and many state governments, erected large monuments commemorating American service in the war. Although the remains of most of the tens-of-thousands slain in the Meuse-Argonne were brought home, many thousands more were interred in large cemeteries, most notably the Aisne-Marne Cemetery to the west of Rheims, and the Romagne Cemetery to the east. The monuments are truly epic in scale–the US erected nothing comparable in the aftermath of WWII. The cemeteries are immense–Romagne is larger than the cemetery at Omaha Beach.
Yet these places are almost forgotten and unvisited today.* Located in an isolated pocket of France, commemorating a war that is largely outside of the consciousness of modern Americans (for whom even WWII is a vague memory), few Americans see them, either on purpose or by accident.
The isolation and loneliness makes them truly haunting places. I visited the Argonne battlefields with my dad in June, 2010. We were alone everywhere. We seldom saw even a car on the road as we wound our way across the Argonne, from the ravine to where the Lost Battalion bled to Chatel-Chéhéry where Alvin York started his advance to Montfaucon and Romagne where the Americans clawed for yards day after day, to the Heights of the Meuse from where German guns ruthlessly pounded the Americans. The monuments and cemeteries were inhabited only by the ghosts.
In many ways, America came of age in the Meuse-Argonne, but today those who fought in that epic battle are not just forgotten–they have never even been known by most Americans. So please, take a moment in these October days to remember, and pay tribute to, men who do not deserve the oblivion to which an easily distracted nation has consigned them.........”
https://streetwiseprofessor.com/the-apotheosis-of-an-american-army-the-meuse-argonne-100-years-ago/
The Meuse-Argonne: 100 Years Ago
”.......But today, the centennial is passing almost completely unnoticed. Where else but here are you reading about it?
In the aftermath of the war, the federal government, and many state governments, erected large monuments commemorating American service in the war. Although the remains of most of the tens-of-thousands slain in the Meuse-Argonne were brought home, many thousands more were interred in large cemeteries, most notably the Aisne-Marne Cemetery to the west of Rheims, and the Romagne Cemetery to the east. The monuments are truly epic in scale–the US erected nothing comparable in the aftermath of WWII. The cemeteries are immense–Romagne is larger than the cemetery at Omaha Beach.
Yet these places are almost forgotten and unvisited today.* Located in an isolated pocket of France, commemorating a war that is largely outside of the consciousness of modern Americans (for whom even WWII is a vague memory), few Americans see them, either on purpose or by accident.
The isolation and loneliness makes them truly haunting places. I visited the Argonne battlefields with my dad in June, 2010. We were alone everywhere. We seldom saw even a car on the road as we wound our way across the Argonne, from the ravine to where the Lost Battalion bled to Chatel-Chéhéry where Alvin York started his advance to Montfaucon and Romagne where the Americans clawed for yards day after day, to the Heights of the Meuse from where German guns ruthlessly pounded the Americans. The monuments and cemeteries were inhabited only by the ghosts.
In many ways, America came of age in the Meuse-Argonne, but today those who fought in that epic battle are not just forgotten–they have never even been known by most Americans. So please, take a moment in these October days to remember, and pay tribute to, men who do not deserve the oblivion to which an easily distracted nation has consigned them.........”