Who we miss on Memorial Day?

Scanning an archived newspaper through today’s lens, it’s hard not to skim a particular story from 1917 without a smidgen of skepticism.

Across the top of the front page of the April 7, 1917 edition of The National City News, a banner headline:

WAR IS DECLARED
The news came to South County a day after the United States entered World War I (and a year or so before the great pandemic would also casually claim lives).

Beneath that headline is written “A Graphic Message From the Battle Front, written by a former National City Boy, now, ‘Somewhere in France.’ “

The message, in the form of a letter home, is dated Feb. 18, 1917 and is written to unknown and sent from unknown. Given that there is no named source or explanation for the omission, you see, now, where today’s skepticism comes in. Was it a legitimate letter or a piece of savvy opining?

The anonymous hometown boy writes “These are thrilling times, I would give anything if our country would jump into the war with both feet. The day Wilson broke with Germany our battalion commander invited us up to the officer’s mess where we drank a glass of champagne to America’s early entry.”

As a result of the 1917 Selective Service Act, 210 “National City Boys” —including 36 immigrants or who were referred to then as “aliens.”

There is no telling how long the letter writer’s giddiness lasted now that his country was involved in active fighting. Nor do we know if he was one of the 53,402 American men who died fighting that war. We do know that were millions of military deaths world wide in that war alone.

We also know there would be more wars and more deaths to come. More than 400,00 U.S. military deaths in World War II, 36,574 American military deaths in the Korean War, 58,220 in Vietnam, 4,419 in the Iraq War, 2,459 in Afghanistan.
On Memorial Day we will pay respect to the members of the American military who died in war. The mothers, fathers, children, brothers and sisters who were snatched from this life in the name of a cause.

Perhaps later we can spare a thought for the civilian lives snuffed out in wartime. The men, women and children who are killed through no fault of their own. What day do we remember and mourn them?