PrintMarch 18, 2011
Honoring All our World War I Heroes
President Obama and Vice President Biden this week paid an unannounced visit to Arlington National Cemetery . They went there to offer the thanks of a grateful nation for the service of Frank Buckles, the last known survivor of the American "Doughboys" of World War I. Buckles was barely 16 when he fibbed about his age to get into uniform. It is altogether fitting and proper that they should do this. That Great War was America's baptism by fire on the world scene. Although France and Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand had already been fighting in Flanders field and Northeast France for three long, bloody years when the U.S. came into the war against Germany, the Americans were welcomed most heartily, especially by the exhausted French. President Woodrow Wilson said America wanted "to make the world safe for democracy." It was a noble cause. But it was certainly an odd thing to ask America's black soldiers to fight for. After all, this was the era of KKK...(Read Full Article)
