I had to share this series of photography by Lewis Hine.  His work has depicted so many poignant scenes of child labor bearing witness of its horrors.  

With these photographs shared in The Atlantic, you can witness wounded soldiers and refugees and doughboys of 1918 in France under the care of the American Red Cross and many French friends. I like to imagine that Joshua H.Bates marched in Paris in the parade photograph, but he was still in transit to England at that time.

100 Years Ago: France in the Final Year of World War I

Why is World War I forgotten?  

There are many theories out there. Right now I default to everyone's concern about World War II veterans dying at an estimated rate of 400 a day. With their deaths we lose the invaluable first-person information of those with primary experiences of the war on all the fronts. There is no one left in the United States who served in World War I.

The United States was never interested in the War to End all Wars, happy in our isolationism policy. A few community leaders had to shame the surrounding downs to even throw a farewell for my uncle and many other young men leaving from their community. After the war, the Congress would not even join Wilson's League of Nations.

Another possibility of the "hum-dum" attitude is due to the national and allied  embarrassment of leaving a sloppy resolution, which developed the blight that welcomed fascism to the continent.

Washington, D.C. is bejeweled with memorials to all 20th century war veterans in which the United States was involved, except one. Can we all give a Jeopardy-styled answer?  "What is World War I?" 

While we were building a United States culture, World War I annihilated European culture. European countries hold World War I sacrifices as sacred, revering the deaths of their soldiers which was double the number of their World War II deaths.  Whereas the United States lost one-third of the amount of soldiers in The Great War versus World War II.

The World War I Centennial Commission is striving to correct the lack of remembrance for our Americans who served. We are encouraged to contribute to the planned D.C. memorial. We are also encouraged to share photographs and stories of our ancestors who served in World War I.

Consider both.  Here is the link to the Commission's website.

In "24 Weeks to ARMISTICE 100" (and beyond) I will have other short articles about the war, and will love your comments.  I will answer them.


Photo:  https://www.worldwar1centennial.org 

I found a great little article in a big online about the American tribes involvement in World War I while I was investigating the code talkers of World War II.  Here is a quote and the source:

"When World War I started, American Indians were not considered U.S. citizens, but that did not stop approximately 12,000 Natives from volunteering to serve in the U.S. military. In addition, four American Indian soldiers serving in the 142nd Infantry of the 36th Texas-Oklahoma National Guard Division received the Croix de Guerre medal from France.
During WWI, 14 American Indian women served in the Army Nurse Corps, with two of them serving overseas. Mrs. Cora E. Sinnard, (Oneida) and Charlotte Edith (Anderson) Monture (Mohawk) both served as Army Nurses in France at a military hospital to lend their skills toward the war efforts overseas. Monture, who referred to her service as ‘the adventure of a lifetime,” died in 1996 at the age of 106."

http://hardnoxandfriends.com/2017/11/17/november-national-native-american-heritage-month/, contributing blogger "Uriel"

"25 Weeks to ARMISTICE 100" is a World War I Armistice blog that will continue to the end of 2018, with a posting each week.  My goal is to share factoids about the war and the people involved in it.  Hopefully you will find the short blog posts interesting. If not, maybe the next week. Those following other pages of this site know that my uncle fought in the Meuse-Argonne Campaign and was killed in action.

You are welcomed to subscribe to the blog. Scroll down this page to see the subscription request on the right sidebar. The first email may appear in your spam/junk folder which you can add to your safe mailing lists.

The soldiers in the banner above are members of Company D of the 347th Machine Gun Battalion of Camp Lewis. Curiously the photograph is attributed to a location in France, March 1918. However this company of the 91st did not arrive in France until July 1918. Prior to that time, only a skeleton crew of the 91st was in Europe.

​In March many of them were in the camp hospital fighting mumps. Nonetheless, they are a fine looking group that did make their contribution in St Mihiel and the Meuse-Argonne. My uncle is a little behind the front row on the left side, Count over four men. See the fellow with a darker complexion just to the fourth's right shoulder?  That is him. I wonder how many fell out of a hospital bed to be in this photograph.