Remembering - "A War to End All Wars" and Flanders Fields with the Many Who Gave

Their Lives That We Could Live!

Preface / Introduction
With the marking of Memorial Day - a day to Remember The sacrifices and those that made the
sacrifices, with remembering all those that gave their lives one often will ask "Why?" That most
celebrated of poems, In Flanders Field by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, M.D.,captures the


essence of those who died and asks that we do not break faith. We vist those fields in this article by
Dr.Jeffrey Lant "May 30, 2011. U.S. Memorial Day. Remember!"
Then there was the great war, "A War to End All Wars",where so many lives were lost and we ask
"Why?" The answer is to be found in part in William Edward Marshall, citizen of Stronghurst,
Illinois, 21st state of the Great Republic. Recorded in this article by Dr. Jeffrey Lant "Thoughts on the
war to end all wars, mustard gas, Uncle Will, and remembrance."



Table of Contents
1. May 30, 2011. U.S. Memorial Day. Remember!
2. Thoughts on the "war to end all wars", mustard gas, Uncle Will, and remembrance.
Remembering - "A War to End All Wars" and Flanders Fields with the Many Who Gave Their Lives That We Could Live!
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May 30, 2011. U.S. Memorial Day. Remember!
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Let us recall this day and its purpose first by reminding you of one of the most celebrated poems of
war, youth too soon ended and of the flower that evokes it all, the blood-red poppy. In Flanders
Field by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, M.D. Canadian Army (1872-1918).
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses row on row, That marks our place; and in
the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and
now we lie In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it
high.
If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep, though poppies grow In Flanders fields.
When I was a boy growing up in Illinois in the late 'forties and 'fifties, every school child was
expected to take a few paper poppies (made so we knew by wounded and maimed U.S. Vets) and
collect some pennies for them from friends and neighbors who never needed to be reminded of what
we were doing or why they should contribute, even if it was the widow's mite. And if it were the
widow or mother with a gold star always in the front window, she responded with exultation and
alacrity, hugging her student visitor, and tears would soon be shed. While you didn't comprehend
why, you soon found yourself with tears, too -- and the adults called you a "good boy" and always
looked into your eyes as they said so. 21 in Flanders fields in the midst of war.
I made my first trip to Europe, to the France I was destined to love deeply, not least for her wounds
and too frequent miseries; the year was 1967. Vietnam was on the world's agenda, rending the
people and the nations. On this trip I (unlike all my traveling companions who had very different
locales on their itinerary) decided to go, taking a bus tour to Flanders fields. I had helped distribute
the paper poppies for many years; I knew the famous poem, and I was curious to see what the
vestiges of carnage and military butchery looked like.
But I little knew the power of these fields and of the palpable spirit of this place, the spirit that spoke
to you, and at once: "Remember, we are your dear departed, your brothers, your fathers, your young
boisterous uncles too soon taken; the cheerful postboy and the brilliant medical student. We are
here, all of us,in our millions; we wish you to understand the profundity of this place, the purpose of
this place, the solemnity of this place... and the gripping tale, certain to impress you, that we tell in
our very life's blood.
This is a place of unsettled ghosts, of too much loss, too much death, too many to remember and an
urgent need never to forget a single one.
Then of a sudden the compelling insistence of this hallowed place made itself known to you.
Tourists like you, babbling of places where they had found good values and other places where they
had not; these tourists now saw the majesty of unending death, too soon, by too many... and their
very words stopped... as they saw around them on every side the unmitigated panoply of death...
Our vehicle went slowly through these fields where death had staked its boundless claims, for more
limbs, for more blood, for more and still more fragile bodies and of a world of plans, expectations,
destinies, ended right here...
Remembering - "A War to End All Wars" and Flanders Fields with the Many Who Gave Their Lives That We Could Live!
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You feel all at this tragic place... and are quiet like your fellow travelers; not one saying a single
word... the only sound the wheels of your vehicle, now a cortege, and the tears falling fast... while
complete strangers take hold of their neighbor's hand and squeeze; it is all any of us can do... and we
all want the warmth of life and seek it now.
What I learned that day, what you must know, is the immensity of these places of eternal rest for a
generation. Here and at many similar places this generation abides for the ages, these fields
profoundly marked with pristine graves and simple headstones, that show the last day of their life,
the first day of their oblivion.
You think, you hope that the end is nigh, but you cannot say so. You cannot say anything; your
vehicle goes slowly, the better for you to understand the awe of this place... and your spirit is sorely
troubled and challenged.
And still your vehicle rides through more of the unending graves, each for a life unseasonably,
unnaturally ended... and one word rises before you and the other travelers: why? What could have
justified so much death and confusion, so much ended too soon, the promise of so many lives, and
these so young? Why?
After several hours, your tour is ended... but the graves of Flanders fields are not at an end. They are,
at tour's end, what they were at tour's beginning: a metropolis of the dead, where the great numbers
you see are only a tiny fraction of the unimaginable totality.
And at last, from so much pain, so palpable and pathetic, comes a valiant thought. That the acres of
Flanders fields, at least in part, are the story of the greatest gift of all, to die for the good of all, to
give your life so that the lives of untold others can be lived fully, happily.... having received from
these dead their lives, their prosperities, everything that makes life worth living.
Since the inception of our great republic wars, insurrections, riots, uprisings have punctuated our
national existence. And each has yielded a generous quota of good people who died that America
and all Americans might live.
The danger, my fellow countrymen, is that any part of us, any one of us should live without blessed
remembrance and heartfelt gratitude to the dead... all of them expired in the unending service of the
nation, our allies, and the troubled planet we aim to sooth and uplift. Every great cause, every event
within these causes has called upon the best among us... and has resulted in the greatest sacrifice of
all, for so many.
What the dead of Flanders fields and of all America's far-flung endeavors want is what only we
living can give. And that is our full love and devotion to such as these. We can only be fulfilled by
giving it... which is what we do today, and gladly so. It is little enough for the sublime greatness of
their gift to us.
Thoughts on the "war to end all wars", mustard gas, Uncle
Will, and remembrance.
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant.
Author's program note. This Memorial Day for the first time since the clock struck eleven on the
eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the day of Armistice, there are no known World War I
veterans extant. The last U.S. veteran, Frank Buckles, died in 2011 after celebrating his 110th
birthday. He served as a U.S. Army ambulance driver in Europe, rising to the rank of corporal
before the war ended. Then there was just one more...
Remembering - "A War to End All Wars" and Flanders Fields with the Many Who Gave Their Lives That We Could Live!
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Florence Green died in 2012 at age 110, just two weeks before her 111th birthday. She joined the
Women's Royal Air Force in September 1918 at the age of seventeen. She went to work as a
waitress in the officers' mess at RAF Marham in eastern England, and was serving there when the
war ended in 1918.
With these two deaths, now they are all dead, in their millions, the men and women who fought to
make the world safe for democracy, theirs the "war to end all wars" as President Woodrow Wilson
earnestly asserted and solemnly pronounced to a world which, after its great sacrifices, wanted so
very desperately to believe him, no one more so than William Edward Marshall, my Great Uncle
Will.
How an Archduke changed the life of a gridiron hero, the most handsome man in Henderson
County.
"The Great War", as its survivors dubbed it, began when a zealous young Slav nationalist named
Gavrilo Princip shot the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, and his
morganatic wife Countess Chotek at point blank range . They both died at once... while Austrian
authorities proceeded to break Princip's body like so many pretzels. Thus did Princip, just 20,
become the first man of millions who yearned for home and peace, finding premature death instead.
And so he died starting the invidious process that killed tit... which then had to kill tat... who
outraged, had to kill tit yet again.
Why did he plan to murder, to assassinate The Heir? For only the highest and best reasons you may
be sure... reasons for which over 60,000,000 people around the world died, every day that trail of
blood and mayhem emanating from the slumped body of His Royal and Imperial Highness grew
broader and broader still. His dead eyes asked a single question, the question hitherto unquestioning
millions would ask in their turn "Why"? The answer is to be found in part in William Edward
Marshall, citizen of Stronghurst, Illinois, 21st state of the Great Republic.
To understand World War I you must understand how Will Marshall, as everyone always called
him, gave up everything he knew and valued to go fight on behalf of faraway people he didn't know
and would never meet, knowingly risking life and limb, remember -- for total strangers.
About Will Marshall.
William Edward Marshall achieved the highest rank his country could confer the moment of his
birth, for then, the very instant he was born he was Citizen of the Great Republic, a title, style and
dignity unknown in most of Europe whose opulent princes had subjects, not citizens. Here Will
Marshal, for all that he was not a prince or count, was better off -- and knew it. Thus his belief in the
Great Republic, its whys and wherefores, came as easily as breathing. He was a free man in a free
country, a man whose right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness was assured by the
Constitution of the United States. These rights came from his relationship to God, not because of
some calculated gesture of a Machiavellian prince who might later rescind what he rued to give.
William Edward Marshall's rights were sacrosanct for him.... and every other Citizen. This was
America in 1890 the year Will Marshall was born, the land of the free and the home of the brave.
Football hero, farmer, respected man of peace.
Will Marshall was called without irony the handsomest man in Henderson County. "That and two
bits will buy you pie and coffee," even his deflating father said. Will didn't mind the raillery; after
all, tall, well made, fleet of foot and master strategist he was that most American of local heroes...
from whose agile moves came a lifetime's respect from those who would tear the goal posts down
after they had seen Will Marshall run past them -- again. Such feats are cherished everywhere in
Remembering - "A War to End All Wars" and Flanders Fields with the Many Who Gave Their Lives That We Could Live!
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America, but nowhere more than in the tiny hamlet of Stronghurst, Illinois; population still under
1000 souls in 1914... everyone of them knew what a good man Will Marshall was... how hard-
working, how public spirited, how well he must stand with his God. And so things might have
continued but for the murderous meeting between an archduke on a sunny July day and a zealot
determined to exterminate him.
Will Marshall goes to war, to France, to his destiny.
Will Marshall was not a warrior, not a man of marshal attitudes, uniforms, poses and gestures.
Farmers, tillers of the land, bringing forth its bounty by their own incessant labor, seldom are. They
know how difficult it is to create life, to spend any of their limited time on this planet destroying it.
Will Marshall abhorred war, yet went to war, the greatest and most destructive war ever, because the
Great Republic and its affairs needed him... and that was that.
"The Yanks are coming."
Thus, Will Marshall became part of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) and in due course
found himself one of over one million citizen-soldiers stationed in France, over half of whom were
at the front lines, including him. There as the increasingly desperate German imperial forces grew
more desperate yet, considering, doing every single thing they could do to snatch victory from
increasingly certain defeat, Will Marshall met his fate, in a cloud of poison gas.
Mustard gas.
Contrary to popular belief, gas as a weapon was first introduced by the French army. However it was
the Germans with their customary organizational genius and chemical skills who perfected the
process. For the defence and glory of the Fatherland anything, even the most horrid thing, was
contemplated, considered and ultimately used. Some apologist somewhere would no doubt advance
a comfortable rationale...
And so one ordinary day an ordinary German solider lobbed the mustard gas that sent William
Edward Marshall, citizen, descendant of the great Chief Justice who helped shape the new nation,
one of nature's gentlemen, to his knees, brought low by the toxic beauty of gas; stealthy, silent,
serene.
But there, you see, is the rub. For gas is one of the cruelest weapons ever created. During the actual
mustard gas attack its manifestations may not be seen, will not be seen for hours, even days. Then...
the gas you inhaled, perhaps without knowing it, became the pernicious agent of your end... the gas
rules you and decides whether you live or die, what manifestations and disabilities may be yours
and torment you for years, for life.
Thus, starting from the day he was gassed until the day he died, Uncle Will lived a life where his
sight degenerated . Remedies were tried. Doctors consulted. Prayers by one and all given for his
recovery, for he was a popular man. All to no avail. The effects of that gas cost him at once one eye.
The second deteriorated year by year until in 1934 he could see nothing at all. Light, for him, had
ceased to exist.
Uncle Will and Me.
When I was growing up in the 'fifties, my family visited Stronghurst every so often. We never failed
to visit Uncle Will and his charming wife Alma. My father made sure we behaved properly. He was
especially keen on the handshake, "Firm, NOT limp!" And how to walk across the parlor properly,
Remembering - "A War to End All Wars" and Flanders Fields with the Many Who Gave Their Lives That We Could Live!
http://www.20WaystoProfit.com Copyright Patrice Porter - 2014 9 of 9
so Uncle Will knew how many steps you took. In this way he calculated how tall you were and how
much you'd grown since the last visit.
The room was quiet, sound muted, light filtered. Uncle Will sat in a great, sturdy chair, its size
necessary to contain the football player of old. I looked closely at his face; this was the face of a
man of resignation and calm acceptance. He remained handsome, even noble right until the end.
He never complained. Never said a word about that day so long ago. Never was anything but gentle,
polite, good humored and glad to see you. He had fought his war, done his bit, paid the terrible price
and could look the world in the eye, his pride deep, profound, abiding. The Great Republic has
besought his help. He had given in full measure, and for him it was "Over, over there", not a bitter
reality revisited daily.
Now not only Uncle Will but every veteran of the Great War is gone. Now they no longer die by
thousands each day... but, far worse, are forgotten in their thousands each day; men and women
whose lives were utterly and completely committed to us, now not even a moment's thought by us.
Yet we are all the children of their unequalled gifts and should always be glad and glad to say so.
They ask so little now, but we begrudge them even that, satisfied to take, satisfied to give them
nothing, not even heartfelt recognition of our eternal debt.
May God forgive us.
Author's closing note. Like so many of his buddies, Uncle Will loved "Over There", a jaunty tune
written by George M. Cohan in 1917.. Find it in any search engine. Turn up the sound and
remember.
Resource
About the Author Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide
range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Get your FREE Worldprofit
Associate Membership at:http://20waystoprofit.com/associates Dr. Lant is also an American
historian and author of 18 best-selling business books.
Republished with author's permission by Patrice Porter http://20WaystoProfit.com.