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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ST MIHIEL ABMC CEMETERY – HISTORY RELIVES A HUNDRED YEARS ON

World War One was not the first time American soldiers died and were left on foreign soil.  The Great War did leave by far the largest number of dead Americans outside the native country, however.  To establish and maintain cemeteries outside the United States to honor the sacrifices made by so many, the American Battlefield and Monuments Commission was set up in 1923 headed by no other than General John Pershing.  There are 28 cemeteries falling under the guise of the ABMC today.  Here is the ABMC St Mihiel Cemetery filled with soldiers many falling during the first offensive campaign fought by the US Army as a cohesive unit – St Mihiel.

St Mihiel Cemetery
Taken from the postwar Michelin Guide to the Battlefields is a early photo of the cemetery at St Mihiel.
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