The Penn's Grove record., 1920-08-20
Last Day of the A. E. f.

ANSN ~"
On Tuesday, the 31st of August, the
American Expeditionary Forces will
officially cease to exist. The last re-
naming unit of that Army, its head
quarters in Washington, on that day
passes out of being. It's records will
be transferred to the War Depart
ment, and on the following day Gener-
al Pershing takes possession of the
offices from which he is to command
another body of brave and efficient
men-our military establishment in
time of peace.
Without blare or bugles, roll of
drums or thunder of salutes, the
American Expeditionary Forces thus
pass into history. Soon the last page
will be written, the volume closed. 1t
will be done with an uno~stentatious
quiet of all things most fitting to SYM
bolize what will actually happen in
those final hours-the conscientious
performance of a simple duty.
The modesty with which the A. E.
f. makes it's exit from the stage of
the colossal drama in which its role
was decisive, has al impressiveness as
beautiful as its environment and back
ground are majestic. The curtain
falls, the lights are out. Soon the
only repository of the great deeds
done by the sons of America in
France, will be the memories in I'M
numbered millions of hearts, and
those that are inscribed, more formal
ly, but not more deeply in the annals
of this nation and the world.
That is all, but what a spectacle it
is. A temple, a Pantheon, a shrine.
A temple wide as civilization, a Pan
theon of immeasurable glory, a shrine
for the civic ideals and moral aspira-
lions of the race.
Two million men composed that Ar
my which in a few days will be no
more. The youth, the valor, the man
hood, the patriotism of America, were
all represented in its ~invincible ranks.
1t fought the greatest battle this
country ever fought. 1t won the
mightiest military campaign the plan
ct ever saw 1t came out victor, not
only in campaign and battle, but in the
most ~stupendous of wars. 1t left sew
enty thousand dead to testify with a
mute eloquence more powerful than
the uttermost flight of vocal oratory,
to the splendor of its achievements and
the magnitude of its sacrifice.
With what mysterious magic of step
Time has sped in the interval be-
tween Then and Now. 1t seems a long
while ago that the American EXpedi-
tionary Army was blowing its red fur
rows across the battlefields in France.
Yet it is less than two years. The
child which was a speeches. and era
died infant then, has hardly learned to
talk and does not yet know its letters.
AS the day of the dissolution of the
Last Unit of the American EXpedi-
tionary Forces draws near, let us seek
to live over again the August of 1918.
Let us feel in memory and visualize
in imagination, what we all felt and
saw in those days. Let us remember
how our hearts and hopes were clus-
tered about our boys in France. Let
US realize what depended on them
our homes, our safety, u honor. All
these were included in the trust that
we committed to their hands, when
beneath the arch of their native skies
and the canopy of the Flag, We said
to them, go and God speed you"
The 31st of Augustine day whose
dawn will reveal the American EXpedi-
tionary Army, still an organic entity,
and whose setting sun will not see that
Army or any unit of it, should be a
day c-onsecrated to earnest thought and
ennobling emotion by the people of
the United States. 1t will be a day in
which to take reckoning both of the
Past and the Future. A day to bring
to every loyal heart the realization of
what it was our boys fought for, and
the cause for which seventy thousand
of them died.