Posted on 09/26/2006 5:03:15 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
ARLINGTON, Va. - The only testament to Francis Lupo's death in a World War I battle has long been his name, etched on a French chapel wall with those of hundreds of other missing soldiers.
On Tuesday, 88 years after he was killed, the recently discovered remains of the U.S. Army private were buried with military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. And by year's end, his name will be carved anew, this time on a white headstone like those marking the graves of his fellow soldiers.
Lupo is the first World War I soldier whose remains — a few fragments of bone and teeth — were recovered and identified by the Pentagon's office for POW-MIA affairs, Pentagon spokesman Larry Greer said.
About 50 people, including two representatives of the French military, attended Tuesday's ceremony. Lupo's niece, 73-year-old Rachel Kleisinger of Florence, Ky., sat in a wheelchair as a traditional gun salute — seven rifles firing three rounds — sounded and an Army bugler played taps.
Then Kleisinger — who was born after Lupo's death but knew his mother — accepted the burial flag from a U.S. soldier.
The military added an Army dress uniform and Lupo's medals: A Purple Heart and the World War I Victory Medal. The victory medal had clasps for the battles he fought in — Mont Didier-Noyon, Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne — before he died during an attack on German forces near Soissons, France, on July 21, 1918.
Lupo, from Cincinnati, was 23 when he was killed. A French archaeologist discovered his remains in 2003 while working on a conservation project.
It took the Army more than five months to find Kleisinger, Lupo's next of kin, and another six months to make funeral arrangements, Greer said.
Study of Lupo's remains, found with a fragment of a combat boot and a wallet embossed with his name, showed he stood about five feet tall. That is "very, very small for a soldier headed for combat," Greer said.
The fighting Lupo saw was some of the fiercest and most gruesome of the war. An anonymous extract from the diary of an officer in Lupo's unit, later reprinted in an Army history of the war, described the artillery and aerial attacks in stark terms: "Oh, how maddening are these horrible bloody sights! Can it be possible to reap such wholesale destruction and butchery in these few hours of conflict?"
Lupo was a member of Company E, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division. His unit fought as part of a joint French-American attack on German forces near Soissons, in what became known as the Second Battle of the Marne. Army records say Lupo's brigade was advancing toward Chaudun, about 1.5 miles southeast of Ploisy, as the 1st Infantry's four-day attack began.
Of the 1st Infantry Division's 12,228 infantry officers and enlisted soldiers who fought in the Second Battle of the Marne, all but 3,923 were killed, wounded, taken prisoner or listed as missing, according to the Pentagon. Lupo was reported missing in action; available military records give no other details.
Lupo's name was memorialized on the list of missing soldiers inscribed on the walls of the memorial chapel at the Aisne-Marne American Military Cemetery near the village of Belleau, not far from where he was killed.
A total of 116,516 U.S. service members died in World War I; 53,402 are recorded as battle deaths, according to the Pentagon. The United States entered the war in April 1917; it ended in November 1918.
The remains of Pvt. Francis Lupo, arrive at Arlington National Cemetery, Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2006, in Washington. Lupo, of Cincinnati, was killed on July 21, 1918, during an attack on German forces near Soissons, France. It is the first time the remains of a World War I service member have been recovered and identified since the Pentagon established an office in the 1960s with the specific mission of identifying war dead from abroad. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)
Welcome home soldier...you served your nation well.
Hooray! Another American hero has come home from that horrid country.
Nothing has ever compared with the sheer carnage of WWI.
We were in a tiny village in northern Scotland, literally two streets and a square with a little church on one side. Off to one side of the square was a red sandstone memorial arch -- literally covered with hundreds of names of men from that tiny village that died in WWI. Down on the bottom at one side were 5-6 names of men who died in WWII.
Some towns in Scotland were almost wiped out.
According to one of my former professors who specializes in European history, World War I killed such a huge percentage of the cream of European “breeding stock” (pardon the phrase) that in following generations, the average height of Europeans dropped by more than two inches and their IQ’s fell by an average of 10 points.
I am convinced that the downfall of the French nation dates from the slaughter of WWI. The French Army regulars (the poilus -- "hairy guys" -- ) were competent, tough, and very, very brave. But they all were killed at Verdun, Ypres, and the Marne.
My grandfather survived a mustard gas attack in WW I. He swore that his own and only son would not be sent off to the front lines in WW II. My dad served in the US Army during WWII in a medic unit.
Daddy was a soldier in WWII, and he hoped none of his children would have to fight in a war - hoped at that time that WWII was truly the war to end all wars - too much to hope for I suppose.
Nothing has compared to the sheer stupidity of WW1, either. Generals in that war kept reinforcing failure, didn't change their plans to suit changing conditions, and insisted on sticking to those same plans (the Somme comes to mind) when it was clear it wasn't working.
In addition, they threw away so many soldiers' lives by refusing to reinforce successes and playing petty politics to enrich themselves that they all should have been shot.
Ironically, most of the lessons that were learned by the Europeans in WW1 should have been learned from the American Civil War. But the Europeans "knew better" and ordered men to charge the Maxim guns of the Germans.
Such a waste.
Big Red One Ping!
Big Red One Ping!
However, when my husband and I were first married, we lived next door to a WWI vet who was gassed in the Argonne. He had continual lung trouble - emphysema and, eventually, lung cancer (didn't stop him smoking though). We used to look after his house and yard (and his goat, Leona) when he went into the VA to get his lungs cleaned up.
America was late to the fair in that war -- we saw some pretty heavy action, esp. in the Argonne, but nothing like the long slow deadly slog that the Brits and French had to endure. One of the most poignant things I read about WWI was the English teenager who wrote that he knew that all Mummy's boyfriends but Daddy had died in the war . . . and all of Auntie's . . . but he didn't comprehend what that really meant, multiplied by about a million, until he saw the acres and acres of white crosses.
Read this: Rudyard Kipling, "The Gardener"
Kipling lost his only son in the Great War. In a sense this story is his memorial, or his processing of the tragedy. He is a much greater writer than most people realize -- he "got it" on some basic, primal level.
Belle prière à faire pendant la Messe
Seigneur, faites de moi un instrument de votre paix.
Là où il y a de la haine, que je mette l'amour.
Là où il y a l'offense, que je mette le pardon.
Là où il y a la discorde, que je mette l'union.
Là où il y a l'erreur, que je mette la vérité.
Là où il y a le doute, que je mette la foi.
Là où il y a le désespoir, que je mette l'espérance.
Là où il y a les ténèbres, que je mette votre lumière.
Là où il y a la tristesse, que je mette la joie.
Ô Maître, que je ne cherche pas tant à être consolé qu'à consoler, à être compris qu'à comprendre, à être aimé qu'à aimer, car c'est en donnant qu'on reçoit, c'est en s'oubliant qu'on trouve, c'est en pardonnant qu'on est pardonné, c'est en mourant qu'on ressuscite à l'éternelle vie.
Requiescat in pace, Pvt. Francis Lupo.
St. Francis's day is close upon us.
BuHuHaHa! My standardized answer to such widespread moronic crap:
Love it or hate it - if we look on the issue from a Darwinistic point of view, those wars cleaned the male European gene-pool from those who were not able to survive such a situation like war. There are many reasons for it: Some were too aggressive, some were not careful enough, some were too dumb, some followed their orders to the last etc. etc. etc.. War is a perfect selection. I am aware that not all reasons for not dying in a war are that honourful, but they are for sure a good way not to win the "Darwin Award"*. Those who survive are usually (we do not speak about individual cases) more intelligent and more able compared to their fallen comrades (I know that this is not PC - but it is the plain truth). And guess what: Those Europeans who survived war, the Holocaust, Gestapo, Russian imprisonment, the foreign Legion, NKWD, KGB, SS, American chewing gum, Mormon missionaries, the economic wonder and Elvis Presley are my grandfathers and fathers. The by far best genetic material you can find.
Since your
professor was obviously too dumb to understand Darwinism and the principles of biological selection I recommend strongly the visit of another -more scientific- univercity. The teachers of your campus should better specialize into cleaning toilets instead of European history, since this would obviously fit much better into their intellectual potentials.
Greetings from Lake Constance - Good old Europe!
AB
I see one thing that never went away is European arrogance.
My, you are full of yourself, aren't you?
Well deserved and well done. He deserves his rightful place in Arlington.
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