Jonathan Darman, The New York Times; If Only More Americans Could See This Place
[Kip Currier: On this Veterans Day -- and every day -- thank you to all those who have served, are serving, and have given their lives or been injured in service to our country and the ideals of peace and freedom for the world.
My Great-Uncle Paul Page Currier (1895-1940) served as a Corporal in the U.S. Army in Europe during World War I. One of my family archival treasures is a framed 1919 newspaper article about Paul in the long-defunct Mercer, Pennsylvania newspaper, The Western Press. The Friday, February 28, 1919 all-caps front-page top-of-the-fold article PAUL CURRIER IN FIERCE FIGHT: CLOTHES RIDDLED WITH SHOTS recounts his time in battle-torn northeastern France via a letter that he wrote to my Great-Grandmother, Nettie Nancy Page Currier (1864-1946). The article's sub-headline reads:
Thrilling Story of an Encounter With Huns in Argonne Forest --- Only Two of Squad Left to Advance After Shell Struck Them
The article incorporates an entire letter (dated January 29, 1919, Villiers, France) from Paul to his mother, shedding light on the harrowing experiences of his unit. (I am working on a separate blog post that will include the full-text of the article.) An especially poignant part of Paul's letter provides a first-hand sense of the trials and tolls of military service, as he describes a November 1918 battle in the Argonne Forest, as a member of the U.S. Army's Eightieth Division, machine gunners, 319th Infantry, Company K:
When I got ready to advance again I only had two men in the squad who could follow me, the rest of the seven were badly wounded or killed. That was the last push I was in, and am glad of it, too, for have seen all I care to see of war.
Thankfully, unlike far too many service members, Paul Currier was able to come home from the war. Regrettably though, his health was impacted by exposure to mustard gas on the battlefront, which led to his untimely death in his mid-40's.
My late father, James Hughes Currier, served as a Captain in the U.S. Air Force and our family had the privilege of being stationed for several years on the now-decommissioned Niagara Falls, New York U.S. Air Force Base.]
[Excerpt]
"Eighty-one years ago this week, men from the advancing U.S. Army stood in a rain-soaked farm field in Margraten, the Netherlands, and established a cemetery. Over the winter and spring that followed, the bloody final months of World War II in Europe transformed that quiet stretch of land into a huge American cemetery, its soil turned over with thousands of fresh graves.
The fields at Margraten would become one of 14 permanent overseas military cemeteries set aside for America’s World War II dead that the U.S. government maintains in perpetuity. These beautiful, haunting places were dedicated by still-grieving Americans in the years that followed the war, remembering its awful costs and praying for a lasting peace.
There are fewer and fewer people still alive who lived through World War II. Margraten and the other cemeteries serve as reminders of the sacrifices that Americans made to free Europe. And, at a time when many Americans want to retreat from our responsibilities to the rest of the world, they offer us a warning.
The American service members buried in the soil of Europe grew up in a country where many respectable politicians claimed America had no business preserving peace on the European continent or promoting freedom in the world. There was no NATO, no United Nations, no American-led global order."
