ABMC AND AMERICA’S GREAT WAR – RETAINING THE PAST

93rd anniversary of Belleau Woods; seen from top of chapel at Aisne-Marne ABMC Cemtery – U.S. 1st Marine Division Public Affairs Office

World War One was a reluctant push onto the global stage for the United States.  The country involved itself only with the last nineteen months of the war.  A slow starter, it took a year before meaningful numbers of American troops began to reach the European theater.  The summer of 1918 saw the development of a new army which learned the lessons the European citizen armies had already earned over almost four years of brutal industrialized killing. Remembrance would come later, enter the ABMC.

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OISE-AISNE ABMC CEMETERY – AMERICAN SPIRIT AT THE SECOND MARNE

Walking the cemetery with former Cemetery Superintendent Jeffrey Aarnio at Oise-Aisne ABMC.

People not acquainted well with the First World War might be surprised there was more than one Battle of the Marne.  The first battle was by far the more famous, but the second proved to be as decisive, if not more, than the first.  In this campaign, American units fought for lengthy periods of time in division sized units in a truly international campaign.  The bulk of the effort was French, but there were British and Italian troops fighting alongside the Doughboys, throughout.  The American efforts in the Second Marne are remembered in the ABMC – American Battlefields and Monuments Commission – Oise-Aisne Cemetery equidistant between the town of Fère-en-Tardenois to the west and Nesles to the east – about 1 kilometer either direction.

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