Forgotten sacrifice: Historians aim to keep memory of World War I alive
By Maddy Hayden
Friday, November 10th, 2017
The United States entered World War I more than a century ago on April 2, 1917.
Hundreds of thousands of young American men, including thousands of New Mexicans, were sent “over there” – mostly to France – to fight on the battlefields and in the trenches.
The U.S. had vowed to stay neutral in the conflict that had raged on in Europe since 1914, but the German sinking of a British ship carrying American civilians eventually led to a declaration of war.
The last American “doughboy,” as soldiers in the conflict were known, died in 2011.
As even the children of the war’s veterans are reaching extreme old age, WWI is quickly fading from memory.
“World War I remains America’s forgotten war, even though more Americans gave their lives during that war than during Korea and Vietnam combined, and even though it profoundly shaped the rest of ‘the American century,’ ” reads an introduction on the home page of the U.S. World War I Centennial Commission, created by Congress in 2013 and tasked with educating today’s Americans about the war.
The First World War is generally, it seems, eclipsed by the second, which resulted in four times as many American casualties and is fresher in Americans’ minds.
New Mexicans are especially connected to World War II’s Battle of Bataan and the subsequent death march, which claimed the lives of as many as 650 Americans.
Continue reading this story at The Albuquerque Journal