[searchandrecovery]

There are several monuments to the military carrier pigeons.

Words fail me. With "telegram" and "soldier", you met or exceeded all fr expectations and hopes. You are in a league of your own (seriously, I hope you do this stuff for a living). But now (NOW), with "monument", I've got to build some freakin' hall of fame. I've gotta go to home depot tomorrow and get the 2x4's and sheetrock and all that other stuff to construct some kind of space to celebrate folks like yourself. Thanks. Thanks a freakin' lot.

One of them won the Croix de Guerre.

Croix de Guerre - sounds like a sauce.

[AnAmericanMother]

Well, after all, it's just a French decoration . . . figures they'd give it to a bird, huh?

Actually, the bird was amazing. His name was Cher Ami and he was wounded twice but persisted in carrying his messages, even when one of his legs was shot away and he had a hole in his chest the size of a dime. It was rumored that Gen. Pershing also awarded him the DSC - but there's no record of it other than that he gave him a "silver medal". After he died of the effects of his wounds in 1919, he was stuffed and presented to the Smithsonian, along with his Croix de Guerre.

( . . . and I DO do this stuff for a living - I worked on the first Boolean search computer terminal in Atlanta back in the late 70s. Glad you're pleased with my fascination with trivia . . . :-D )

[AnAmericanMother]

Wow! This is really cute! I found this on the same site. It's a coloring book with the story of Cher Ami. You can download it, print it out, staple it together, and give it to your kids.

Cher Ami and the Lost Battalion