Katharine: Armistice Day LEST WE FORGET

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month:  LEST WE FORGET

Photo courtesy of the War Graves Photographic Project

For The Fallen by Laurence Binyon.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Lest we forget: Corporal Olie Dunk lowers the flag from the Royal Air Force's 83 Expeditionary Air Group during a sunset remembrance ceremony at their Qatar base

Looking down: Members of the Armed Forces and the public gather at the Cenotaph memorial in Whitehall, Central London, during the Remembrance Sunday service, Sunday 10 November 2013

The first Americans to go into action in  WW1 did so on 2 April 1918.

Eventually about 4 million American soldiers served in the First World War including 200,000 black Americans. 3.7 million Americans served in France. The Americans played a vital role in the ultimate Allied victory. There were over 306,000 American casualties in the war including 50,000 American soldiers killed.

Franklin D Roosevelt went out to France to tour the battle zones in August 1918. He reported on his experience in a speech in 1936 when he said, "I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping, exhausted men come out of line - the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward 48 hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."