War and Remembrance
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By Kate Clarke Lemay
February 06, 2019
War and Remembrance: The Story of the American Battle Monuments Commission. Thomas H. Conner. Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 2018.
Those who have walked the grounds of an overseas American war cemetery are unlikely to forget the experience. The endless rows of white marble headstones, meticulously cared for lawns, and works of art and architecture organized around the Christian theme of redemption distinguish these sites as particularly American. No other nation has created such a variety of works of high design. In fact, the grave marker in the shape of the Latin cross has become an icon for American war sacrifice.
The overseas American war cemeteries were the work of the smallest agency of the executive branch, the American Battle Monuments Commission—one of the least understood agencies in the federal government, which is saying a lot. The history of the American Battle Monuments Commission is a fascinating account of logistical genius, cultural diplomacy, remembrance priorities, and memory wars. But it is also a history of insistent whitewashing of American identity and religion by an exclusive midcentury good-old-boys club of commissioners, veteran employees, artists, and architects. And, until recently, it was the history of a failed mission to educate and promote awareness about the overseas American war cemeteries. The latter is a murky and problematic history, and it would take a brave historian to untangle the issues outlined above. For both sets of histories, however, Thomas H. Conner’s War and Remembrance: The Story of the American Battle Monuments Commission is a good place to start, offering a wealth of names, dates, and statistics, as well as some analysis of important figures’ influence on commemoration, particularly that of John J. Pershing.
https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/02/06/war_and_remembrance_114167.html
