ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY

For the first time in 35 years, the remains of an unknown U.S. soldier from World War I will be buried in an American cemetery in France.

Officials with the American Battle Monuments Commission will carry out the burial on June 7 at the Oise-Aisne American Cemetery in northern France. It will be the first burial of an American unknown from World War I since 1988.

Maj. Samuel Woodfill, who single-handedly took out several machine-gun nests with a rifle, a pistol and a pickax during the Meuse-Argonne offensive of World War I, is the subject of the latest graphic novel in the Association of the U.S. Army’s series on recipients of the nation’s highest award for valor.

The remains of America’s first unknown soldier were brought home by eight men selected for the mission for their extraordinary feats during World War I and the appeal their stories would have as representatives of all American forces overseas, author and historian Patrick K. O’Donnell says.

Describing the World War I generation as “forgotten” and part of a “forgotten war,” O’Donnell learned of the men and their solemn mission on a battlefield walk of Belleau Wood in France a few years ago. He realized the story of the body bearers was “history hidden in plain sight.”

April 10, 2017

World War I began with the smallest of incidents and turned into one of the most complex of global events, a lesson that should be heeded today, according to a panel of historians gathered at the Association of the U.S. Army on the 100th anniversary of the U.S. entry into “the war to end all wars.”