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Show TAGESEL BEAR RIVER VALLEY LEADER, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1930. CAN WE FORGET? TEt SRIRIT TW J 77 MESSAGE THAT ENDED WORLD WAR ill U. S. ARMY FIELD MESSAGE "llil fi. Fi XT 1 I ! I mc"tt, ). J I n Tat JL. Ap.ih n w ARMISTICE DAY T. A tW.TAXPJH4 &TTtmj i tet , Dart , cn&Nt: ErJtmc UtuRt NOVEMBER The words contained in tliis message threw the world into a frenzy of Joy on that eventful morrJn" of November 11, 1918, the anniversary of which is being observed by the nations engaged in the World war. It is the late Marshal Foch's order halting hostilities on the front No longer cJeaves the ruthless sword, And gone is war's grim panoply. Dead homes, dead men and now, O Lord, A moment's rest Beside the monument that we Have builded for ourselves, not thee. The years shall dull our grief and yet, Though now the battle dust is lain, Can we forget? Can we forget? We need thee, Lord, For thine the boon that tears of pain Once shed shall not be shed agdn. Albert J. Cook, in American Legion Monthly. How Soldiers Got the News It was Monday, November 11, 191S, when hostilities came to an end from Switzerland to the sea. Twelve years ago at eleven o'clock of the eleventh day of the eleventh month "Finis la guerre." bridge they are building, a beautiful thing of long, low, graceful arches, stretched straight across toward the Capital straight Into the purple anl mauve mists wherein still were vlsib'e the noble dome of the Capitol, the perfect temple In memory of Lincoln, the Placed Roses on Coffin of "Unknown" Washington monument. Suppose you had been the war hero actually to select America'! Un- that peaceful Oc- known Soldier on tober day, 1921, In the little makeshift chapel at The command-in- s officers and dignitaries, every ne, la fact, outside the door, you a top sergeant standing alone before four coffins, Identical and draped bright with the Stars and Stripes. You dropped the pink and white roses on the coffin second from the nd, on your right, thus making for-ythe Unknown choice. Suppose all this then what would you expect of the years ahead, back hornet He Made Choice. Sergt Edward S. Younger, who dropped the roses, expected many things. Through the life of the nation the Unknown was to He In his tomb at Arlington. Perennially the President, the senators, foreign emissaries, would gather round it in ceremonies of honor. The Unknown would be a legend, a symbol, a mystic glory. But Sergeant Tounger. of all the A. H F had been chosen to nominate er Mm. And the sergeant's comrades some open, some wheedling and some challenginghad asked, wasn't there some tiny clew to the Identity of the Unknown? Come now, among pals, wasn't there? Small wonder If Sergeant Tounger, Unreturning home, anticipated! sought honors, mayhap; little tributes f unbid-fo- r Interest ; even the doubtful attention of the venal seeking to capitalize what they fancied he might have to divulge. Not that he would bear an instant with such dishonor still, a man must think and and speculate. Now Lives In Chicago. The other day almost ten years ... him. France. Imagine Here truly was the beauty and light old poets. A woixler possessed me. Assume I had been the one to have chosen the hero in the white marble, forever in the lap of the amphitheater that Is its altar. What effect would that have had on my life? My outlook? Would not this place have had for me a secret, personal meaning and charm? I ' thought of Sergeant I set out to find Younger. ef the aft-we- to see Sergeant Younger at his borne in Chicago, Alan MaoDonuld writea in the Philadelphia I'.eoord. 1 had a few days previous stood before the tomb of the Unkuown. Shadows were gathering over Arlington, thst haunt of the heroes who have passed. The simple sepulchre of white marble lies on the brow of a ftntle slope to the Potomac. The new The Sergeant Is Found. The former sergeant he was honorably discharged In February, 1922 lives at No. 2005 Bingham street The home is a little, two-stor- y frame house, long unpainted, with the varnished Imitation walnut front door of 20 years ago. It stands at a Y of streets, a large on one street car barns hand, laundry on the other. I pounded on the front door. No answer. I went down the narrow passage between the Younger home and the house next door. I rapped on the wlndowless back door hard. It opened slightly ; I saw the electric lights were on Inside. Two faces peered through the crack, man and boy. What did I want? Impatiently. Was the man Edward S. Younger Sergeant Younger? He was but he was in a great hurry. He had to be at work at noon. And meantime he had to take his son to his father-in-law'- s for the afternoon. His wife was away, working for a few days. Younger was glad once he understood why I had come to tnlk. A clerk in the post office sorting mall for Wisconsin was his Job he could go In an hour late and work an hour longer. How'd I ever And him? The Veterans' bureau of course I But do yon know, I was the first writer or reporter or what not ever to seek him outl He had wondered, too, with all this talk and writing about the Identity of the Unknown Soldier. Proves Pleasant Soul. Sure, he'd tell what there was, nadn't thought about that day at Chalons-sur-Marn- e for a long time; you know how those things slip Into the past. A great day; though tho little laugh bubbled up plcasurably. Why, the sergeant thought they honored him to let him do the choosing more than they did the Unknown. Oh, not really, of course. It Just felt that way, then, with the ceremony, shaking the officers' hands, the dinner given by the French say, wine and song and cheer, speeches you couldn't understand . . . It was rich I A. Born In the Chicago stock yard district. Younger was soon orphaned. His father, German born, died when he was three; his mother, a Polish woman, not long after. School, work, getting along somehow, and then, enlistment, February 23, 1917. A time at Laredo, Texas and France. The war wasn't so bad now, after all this time. Some first rate poker games, with plenty francs. (Now, the sergeant chuckled, he enjoyed penny ante.) Caught under a house wrecked by enemy fire not far from Neufcha-teaJuly, 1918, he had a spell in the hospital. Scarcely back again, he was u, wounded In the Argonne drive. Discharged next year In Germany, he Joined the Fiftieth Infantry at Mayen, Germany, and from there in 1921 was ordered to Chalons-sur-Marn- e to his surprise, and for what he did not know. . . . In the little group ordered as pallbearers from the Fiftieth, Fifth and Eighth regiments, the seargent faced Col. Harry F. Rethers, of the Army Graves Registration service he wasn't sure it was Colonel Rethers, but thought It was. The colonel examined the service records. None of the men had been decorated, nor had performed signal feats, perhaps by design all were Just good, average soldiers. . . . Picked to Select Unknown. "I guess you're the one, Younger," decided the colonel. "You'll select the Unknown." So Younger stood alone In the little chapel Improvised in the city hall. Outside the open door stood the officers, French and American General Dubois, Major General Rogers, Gen. Henry T. Allen, commanding the army of occupation. It was still and dark and silent Twice he walked around the four coffins. He dropped the bouquet; turned and saluted. The rest was a little blurred in memory. The generals came toward him, and shook his hands. Yes, surely 1 You know there were speeches and things . . . the bands played the dead march. From Saul? That was It . . . He went with the body to Havre. It was like a holiday for heroes, so enthused were the French. At Havre was the dinner and the wine. , . . Identity Never to Be Known. No, none will ever know the Identity ef the Unknown Soldier. The four bodies were four Identical bodies from four different cemeteries. Even in those cemeteries, or among the men there, these bodies were not identifiable. He understood that not even the companies of these men were known . defl-nltel- It was a memorable day, a more memorable moment when, at the stroke of eleven, the noise of cannon topped, machine guns grew still, and rifles ceased to crack. For the first time In four years the air was free from flying missiles, and there was quiet on the tortured face of a war-tor- n land. Over here, one remembers the noise which accompanied the wildest delirium of celebration the country ever has known. But what lingers in the mind of every man who was a member of the A. E. F. in France Is the moment of deafening silence which punctuated the end of the war. There could be no noise of celebration to equal the roar of the war which certain members of the American expeditionary forces had been engaged In. They had been listening to the granddaddy of all noises, louder noises and more of them than ever had been heard In the history of the world. So It Is not the noise which is memorable to the American soldiers who were at the front twelve years t ta th finMolt 4nmn1ofA roa. flCA satlon of all noise. Good News Flies Fast miles of Along the twenty-seve- n front held by Americans, firing continued literally until the eleventh hour. Word of the impending armistice had spread faster than the flu during the None of the doughboys believed it at first They had heard the same thing before. It was Just one of those rumors. Only the preceding Thursday night the night the envoys epidemic. came over from Spa some one had passed the word that the armistice had been signed and there had been a small flurry of excitement lights where there should be no lights and indiscriminate firing of arms result d ing in reprimands. But this time it was true. From the wireless station on the Eiffel tower in Paris Marshal Foch's order to cease fislng at eleven o'clock had gone out hard-voice- Into the air to the line which the Americans held from near Sedan to the Moselle. The high command bad a notion of passing the wonderful order along In a military manner, to have the corps report It calmly by wire to the divisions, the divisions to the brigades, the brigades to the regiments, the regiments to the battalions, and so on until every member of every squad knew about it. Put it did not work out that way. The news spread by that form of wireless known to mun long before Marconi was born. It started early In the morning with the first blush of dawn. It ran along a thousand inexf linen or men shivering and starnjiini the nniil. chtlK-rinj- ? their mess kch! and l:imor!ns for chow. Truck tirlv ers shouted it to .one another on tie ro:nK l'ix:iUh rhiers Hung the words over their shoulc'er as thry kicked the ti.nls of heir motorcy les Into I lat e ami (timed on the gas. So over in They were battlefield strays . . . severul squads successively had shuffled the four coffins, one squad after another, in the chapel, before he dropped the bouquet The coffins were alike as four peas. ... ' winding, battered roads, Into kitchens, camions, hospitals, ammunition dumps, gun emplacements, dugouts aud barracks went the tremendous news "Finis la guerre. Eleven o'clock." With this knowledge in mind, the war went on in a final burst of reckless abandon. Everyone wanted to have a hand in it before It ended. It is told how at one point where a Yankee outfit was having a brisk battle on the east of the Meuse a man stationed at one battery stood with a handkerchief In his uplifted hand, a watch in the other. It wunted one minute of eleven o'clock. In front of him were the guns of the battery, four of them. Attached to each lanyard was a long rope, manned by gunners, cooks, signalmen, soldiers, messengers, stragglers, everybody. At eleven o'clock the handkerchief fell, the men pulled and the battery fired its last shot. And so it was, at hundreds, thousands of places along the line. Stopped Fierce Action. Probably the hardest fighting being done by the Americans in the final hour of the war was that which the troops of the Twenty-eighth- , Ninety-seconEighty-firs- t and Seventh divisions with the Second American army. They had launched an attack above Vignuelles Just before dawn. It was no tea party. They knew nothing of any order to cease firing, and were hard at It when word reached them Just In time, brought t the edge of the battle front by runners scurrying from fox hole to fox hole. Then, at the stroke of eleven, after every gun In the war seemed to have been fired simultaneously, some of them without any attempt at direction, silence utter and absolute silence-f- ell upon the land. It was as if the world bad suddenly died. Men looked at one another bewildered. But oaiy for a moment. Then Every man to the A. B. F. threw down his tools of war. A slow grin spread over his face. And then he yelled. At that moment every one waa slightly befuddled, slightly mad. Then another amazing thing happened. The battered, torn landscape which a minute before had been as bare aa the palm of yeur hand, became allva with men. They crawled up out of the earth, dirty, disheveled figures, and looked about them a good deal surprised to discover so many people In a place which had looked so deserted. Fraternizing With Foe. The Germans came un rrinnln?. eager to swap caps and equipment for tobacco and food. A stranger with aa eye looking down upon the scene at this moment would never have been able to tell from the looks of things which side had won the war. And that night for the first time since the war started, there was light illumination other than the flare of guns, the burst of shells and the tapering beams of searchlights sweeping across the dark sky In search of hostile airplanes. Now that the war was over the hov lit everything they could find. Screens were torn from windows and doors. A new moon shone. Rocketa and flares were sent ud to brichten th sky. And that night there was many a man wno could not sleep. It was so d n quiet Thus ended the five hundred and eighty-fift- h day of America's participation In the war. That was twelve years ago. "Finis la guerre." TO FALLEN HEROES rfTii i 1 f v""- - j ff$J.; Cross of War, Crown of Peace The Go!d Star Mother speaks: Scon I shall stand beside the little mound. That makes all France for me, a sacred ground. The place where rests with all life's bati?es o'er, The earthly garment that my son's soul wore, The day he went I said with smiling air, "When you come back son, bring the Croix de Guerre." I could not in his presence feel the chill Of endless parting, sorrow's cup to filL Or long bereavement's ever gnawing pain, I was so certain he'd come back again. Now in my heart and home so long berelt, Just memory, and the Croix de Guerre are left; But when they sent the telegram to me Of one more casualty from over sea Photo shows Mil. Elizabeth G. Hutchins, 92, oldest Gold Star mother that journeyed to France, after she had placed a wreath at the grave of her son in the American cemetery at Belleau, France. s I 'M IMfiaMMMMM Memorial erected at Sydney, Australia, to the men who lost their lrvta m the great war. "It's someone said: take else, a sad mis- Or 'Tie a dream and time for me to wake." Ev'n when the letter came, that said they'd made His grave close to the Argonne Forest shade I thought it could not be, but only seemed Just one more dreadful thing that I had dreamed. e But when a radiance seemed to fill the room Turning to silvery moonlight all its gloom, In dream or vision came life's greatest joy, The voice and loving presence of my boy. "Mother," he said, "I'll never find relief Until you calm your violence of grief. Oh, for my sake your bitter sorrowing cease." Then on my heart there fell a wondrous peace. I rose, I smoothed my hair, I even smiled, What will a mother not do for her child? Lifting my cross on high, 111 journey on, Till life is over and all sorrow gone. Only for him I pray a glad release To some blest plane, where all earth's troublings cease, Grant to him then Thy choicest blessing. Lord And unto him a hero's just reward After the strife and anguish, sweet surcease After the Cross of War, the Crown of Peace. Louise Ivory Moore, in St Louis Globe-Democr- lliiilli M::2T IIIIITM"! 11, 1930. at Never to Be ForgotUa Armistice day finds us with souls uplifted by the vision of a warlesa world, yet none of Its annlveraarUa enn ever discover us unmindful of the deeds of valor which enable us, Instead of our one-tim- e enemy, to celebrate them In pride rather than remorse. Armistice anniversaries fire ua with something mora than patriotic emotions rooted la the past. |
