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12 

AMERICAN LEGION  v. AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSN. 

GINSBURG,  J., dissenting 

can soldiers killed in the war sought to locate the bodies of 
their loved ones, and then to decide what to do with their 
remains.    Once  a  soldier’s  body  was identified, families 
could choose to have the remains repatriated to the United 
States or buried overseas in one of several American mili-
tary  cemeteries,  yet  to  be  established.    Eventually,  the 
remains of 46,000 soldiers were repatriated, and those of 
30,000  soldiers  were  laid  to  rest  in  Europe.    American 
Battle  Monuments  Commission,  Annual  Report  to  the 
President  of  the  United  States  Fiscal  Year  1925,  p.  5 
(1926) (ABMC Report). 
  While overseas cemeteries were under development, the 
graves of American soldiers in Europe were identified by 
one  of  two  temporary  wooden  markers  painted  white.  
Christian  soldiers  were  buried  beneath  the  cross;  the 
graves  of  Jewish  soldiers  were  marked  by  the  Star  of 
David.  See L. Budreau, Bodies of War: World War I and 
the Politics of Commemoration in America, 1919–1933, p. 
120  (2010).    The  remains  of  soldiers  who  were  neither 
Christian nor Jewish could be repatriated to the United 
States for burial under an appropriate headstone.11 
  When the War Department began preparing designs for 
permanent headstones in 1919, “no topic managed to stir 
more  controversy  than  the  use  of  religious  symbolism.”  
Id.,  at  121–122.  Everyone involved in the dispute, how- 
ever, saw the Latin cross as a Christian symbol, not as a 
universal or secular one.  To achieve uniformity, the War 
Department initially recommended replacing the tempo-

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11 For  unidentified  soldiers  buried  overseas,  the  American  Battle 
Monuments Commission (ABMC) used the cross and the Star of David 
markers  “in ‘proportion of known Jewish dead to know[n] Christians.’ ”  
App. 164.  The ABMC later decided that “all unidentified graves would 
be marked with a [c]ross.”  Id., at 164, n. 21.  This change was prompted 
by  “fear  [that]  a  Star  of  David  would  be  placed  over  an  [u]nknown 
Christian,”  not  by  the  belief  that  the  cross  had  become  a  universal 
symbol.  Ibid.