American Heart in WWI: A Carnegie Hall Tribute

- Hi, I'm General Stan McChrystal.

For 250 years, generations of American veterans have defended our flag and fought for freedom.

Tonight, I present you with a story that honors and celebrates that tradition and is the origin of our Veterans Day.

[dramatic music] From July 1914 to November 1918, war engulfed Europe.

By early 1917, Germany and its allies had seized hundreds of thousands of square miles of territory across the Eastern, Western, and Southern fronts, leaving an entire continent shattered.

At that moment when all seemed hopeless, America stepped into the fight and onto the world stage.

With the willingness of the heart, husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers, boarded ships and headed over there to stand beside our allies and fight for democracy.

On stage at New York City's Carnegie Hall, historian John Monsky takes us inside the war through the lives of five real people, movingly brought to life by some of Broadway's finest performers.

He tells their story in a way you've likely never seen before, through a powerful blend of live storytelling, rare film and photographs from the war, and a live 60-piece orchestra.

It all comes together to create an extraordinary living documentary.

The soldiers in this story are just like the men and women that I had the honor of leading, smart, skilled, above all, filled with the values of the American character.

There's a lot we can learn from them even now.

Here is "American Heart in World War I: A Carnegie Hall Tribute."

[dramatic music] [audience applauding] [dramatic music] [dramatic music] Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag And smile, smile, smile Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag Smile, boys, that's the style What's the use of worrying It never was worthwhile So, pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag And smile, smile, smile - 100 years ago, every American knew the story of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive in World War I. It stood side by side with Yorktown and Gettysburg.

Tonight I want to take you there to the Great War and the Meuse-Argonne.

The farm fields of the Meuse-Argonne are still there just three hours east of Paris.

It was and still is the largest battle in American history.

1.2 million United States soldiers, 125,000 casualties, 25,000 dead.

A graveyard near the battlefield still stands.

They play "Taps" there every night.

It holds 14,000 Americans.

[bright music] Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag And smile, smile, smile Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag Smile, boys, that's the style What's the use of worrying It never was worthwhile So pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag And smile, smile, smile - Most of us know nothing about World War I. We owe it to the fallen, if not to ourselves, to know more.

My name is John Monsky.

I'm a lawyer and historian.

I lecture here at Carnegie Hall and the New York Historical, and I decide I want to know more.

So I go there to the Western Front and the Meuse-Argonne itself.

During a cold December, my son Harrison, not knowing any better, comes with me, and we stand in the trenches.

We traverse the forests.

We cross the ponds.

And for almost five days, we're covered in this deep mud.

In my backpack I carry a book with me.

It's not a battlefield guide.

In fact, it's complete fiction, F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby."

[bright music] It's published 100 years ago in April, 1925.

We know it as a Jazz Age romance, but it's filled with insights into World War I, all the way to the Meuse-Argonne Offensive itself.

When the war breaks out, Fitzgerald volunteers, spends a year in the Army.

But to F. Scott's great disappointment, the war ends before he gets shipped overseas.

He remains fascinated by the war.

He will study the pictures and he will walk these war-torn battlefields again and again.

It's no surprise then that the plot of "The Great Gatsby" turns around two World War I vets, Jay Gatsby himself, and Nick Carraway, the narrator.

The war destroys Gatsby's romance with his true love, Daisy.

Daisy gives up waiting for Gatsby during the war and marries a brute of a man, Tom Buchanan.

After the war, Gatsby does everything to get her back.

He throws lavish parties, drives gorgeous cars, flies in on hydroplanes.

But the ending is tragic and futile.

No, this is not a battlefield guide, but it is a useful map to me.

A map of an emotionally bankrupt generation cut adrift by World War I.

"The Great Gatsby" ends with a deadly car accident.

World War I starts with one.

On the morning of June 28th, 1914, in Sarajevo, there's an assassination attempt on the Archduke Ferdinand of Austria.

Now it may surprise you to learn this, but it fails.

Later that afternoon, the Duke's car takes a wrong turn and they stop and ask for directions right in front of one of the original assassins.

For the Duke and his wife, it's all over in a few seconds.

- [Announcer] Austria invades Bosnia and both countries declare war.

- [Woman] Germany sides with Austria and invades Belgium and France.

- [Man] England sides with France, the Ottoman Empire with Germany.

- [Woman] Russia mobilizes.

- [Man] Germany declares war on Russia.

- [John] And that is how a wrong turn on a summer afternoon supposedly starts World War I.

[bright music] Call out the Army and the Navy Call out the rank and file Call out the brave old Territorials They'll face the danger with a smile Where are the boys of the old brigade Who made Old England free Call out my mother, my sister, and my brother But for God's sake, don't send me - [John] The tragedy is, and no one really understands how this event turns into a world war.

History tells us it's about men making bad decisions and misunderstandings.

40 million casualties.

20 million deaths.

Now that the war has started and the world is on fire, we turn to the war itself through the lives of five real people.

- An Oxford student serving as a nurse in France.

- A jazz musician in the trenches.

- A boy who grew up in the White House, now flying planes for the United States Army.

- A Manhattan debutante in love with him.

- And a New York lawyer leading a group of soldiers surrounded in the Argonne Forest.

- When you look at the war through their eyes, you pry open a hole into it.

The war that these figures step into is the most destructive the world has ever known.

While Americans are trying to decide what to do about World War I in 1914, '15, and '16, the rest of the world is busy fighting it.

At Gallipoli on the Turkish coast, the British suffered 200,000 casualties.

The failed effort is blamed on the lord of the admiralty, a young Winston Churchill.

Oh, Gallipoli, it's nothing compared to the Western Front in France.

Verdun, 800,000.

The Somme, 1.3 million.

But it's not all about the numbers.

It's also about the sheer brutality of the war.

The poison gas, the no man's land, and what I call "the faceless."

This is what our five figures endure day after day.

You need to understand this to understand them.

So I turn there, walking these fields before I go to their stories.

[bright music] Up to your waist in water Up to your eyes in slush Using the kind of language that makes the sergeant blush Who wouldn't join the Army That's what we all inquire Don't we pity the poor civilian Sitting beside the fire - [John] More than a hundred years ago, chemical gas just rolls over these fields Harrison and I are walking on.

You are blinded.

Your skin develops blisters and your lungs labor.

And if you're exposed enough, you die.

Gas, along with explosive artillery shells, kills everything in the way.

All the trees, all the ground cover.

This will become the first war against the environment.

Shortly after the war, the German gas scientists create a gas called "Zyklon B."

It will be the gas used in the concentration camps in World War II.

Like many things, the winds of World War I just blow right into World War II.

[bright music] Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war What do we want with eggs and ham When we got plum and apple jam Form fours, right turn How do we spend the money we earn Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war - John Singer Sargent is a 62-year-old American portrait painter living in London.

When a German artillery shell kills his beloved niece while she prays in a French church, he feels compelled to enter the war.

He becomes an artist for the British Ministry of Information.

And at the Western Front, he sees a line of men blinded by gas.

He will turn his sketches into one of the most remarkable war paintings ever made, titled "Gassed."

The painting's at the Imperial War Museum in London.

Its scale will overwhelm you.

It's 7 1/2 feet high, 20 feet wide.

This is how war starts, how nations fight it, how men die in it.

The blind are literally leading the blind.

[bright music] Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war Who wouldn't be a soldier, eh Oh, it's a shame to take the pay Form fours, right turn How do we spend the money we earn Oh, oh, oh, it's a lovely war - [John] Now, this brings us to no man's land, the terrifying ground between the trench lines of the warring parties.

Following an artillery barrage, men go over the top of their trenches from one side and they fight their way across to the other side.

Going across no man's land each time, barbed wire, machine guns, and artillery trap them.

They can't go back and they can't go forward.

Mass murder follows.

[dramatic music] Hush Here comes a whizzbang Hush Here comes a whizzbang Now you soldiers get down those stairs Down in your dugouts and say your prayers Hush Here comes a whizzbang And it's making straight for you And you'll see all the wonders of no man's land If a whizzbang hits you [dramatic music] - If chemical gas or no man's land does not break you, the trauma of men rendered faceless by artillery shells will.

Looking out of his train window, Nick Carraway sees a faceless man who appears on a billboard.

- At the Valley of Ashes above the gray land and the spasms of bleak dust, you perceive after a moment the eyes of Dr.

T.J.

Eckleburg.

The eyes of Dr.

T.J.

Eckleburg look out of no face, but instead from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose.

- Removed from World War I, we see Dr.

T.J.

Eckleburg as some kind of god lording over the Valley of the Ashes.

But for war vets who actually fought on the front lines, like Nick in "Gatsby," this faceless man evokes something else entirely.

The world has never before seen the power of artillery unleashed in World War I. It steals the faces of men.

And where facial surgery fails an American, Anna Coleman Ladd steps in.

She's neither a doctor nor a surgeon, just a highly trained artist who wants to help.

And she makes masks for boys without hope.

Glasses hold a mask on a man's face, T.J.

Eckleburg glasses, and cover empty eye-sockets.

After the war, the faceless are forced to hide from public view, just like the phantom of the opera in the 1925 film.

In Paris, the faceless form a union and they retire to a castle in a farm.

It will be called the "House of Broken Faces."

[bright music] And when they ask us How dangerous it was Oh, we'll never tell them No, we'll never tell them We spent our pay in some cafe And fought wild women night and day 'Twas the cushiest job We ever had And when they ask us And they're certainly going to ask us The reason why we didn't win the Croix de Guerre Oh, we'll never tell them No, we'll never tell them There was a front But damned if we knew where - Poison gas, no man's land, the faceless.

Now we begin to understand what our five brave figures will confront.

The first one, Vera Brittain, brings us to the early years of the war.

She grows up in a small town in England, middle-class family.

She wants to be a writer, and she wants to go to Oxford.

It's an outlandish wish.

Her father believes Vera should focus on marriage, not a college education.

Vera's brother, Edward, her best friend, finally convinces their father to let Vera go.

And when the war breaks out in 1914, Edward's too young to join the Army without his father's consent.

But Vera owes Edward.

She convinces their father to let Edward go.

Complicity and a decision she'll find hard to forget.

All the boys from school sign up too, including her friends Roland and Geoffrey and Victor.

Vera and Roland are in love, and they will soon be engaged.

To Vera's frustration, Roland goes out of his way to be assigned to the front lines.

Vera and Roland talk it over.

- "If you return from the war, not when," I corrected Roland, "if you return."

He answered gravely and said that he had thought about the issue many times and had a settled conviction that he would return, but he may not be quite whole.

"Would you love me just the same if I was minus one arm?"

he asked.

My reply need not be recorded.

- [John] As much as she loves Oxford, she's unable to sit on the sidelines.

- [Vera] Soberly equipped in my new nurse's uniform, I turn my back forever upon my provincial young ladyhood.

- She is assigned to a hospital in London.

December 23, 1915, the war rages on, and it takes Roland with that rage.

Roland is buried on the battlefield.

His body does not come home.

At this point in the war, England's war dead are not coming home.

Too many bodies, not enough trains.

What does come back is Roland's uniform.

Vera goes over to Roland's house to unpack it with his mother.

- Everything was damp and worn and simply caked with mud, and I was overwhelmed by the horror of the war without the glory.

For though he had worn these things while living, the smell of those clothes was the smell of graveyards and the dead.

The mud of France that covered them was not ordinary mud.

It was not the pure clean smell of the earth, but it was as though we were saturated with dead bodies.

"Take those clothes away," Roland's mother cried.

"Bury them or burn them."

- The mud.

This entire war seems to be about the mud.

Everyone's letters, everyone's books, everyone's diary entries talk about the mud.

Now, when Harrison and I walk the battlefields, we're just covered in it.

We were warned about it even before we got there.

At one point we go to a gas station, we try to power wash this mud off our boots and our jeans.

It's not successful.

The mud, the war, comes home with us.

Why does the United States enter this desperate war?

For me, the answer is always imperfect.

History tells us unrestricted German submarine warfare, the sinking of the Lusitania, and the Zimmermann telegram, a coded-message in which the Germans propose an alliance with Mexico in war against the United States.

But at the bottom of it all, for many Americans, this is a fight for democracy.

The Germans are the aggressors.

They invaded Belgium.

They took French land.

And now, we must act.

During the American Revolution, the French military and the Marquis de Lafayette fought side-by-side with us.

Now's the time to repay that debt.

President Wilson asked Americans to help make the world safe for democracy, and as always, they respond.

The United States enters the war on April 6th, 1917.

The very next day, a composer, George M. Cohan, writes what would become one of the most famous songs in American history on his way to work.

When he gets home, he performs it for his family with a tin pan for a helmet and a broom for a gun.

Over there Over there Send the word, send the word over there That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming The drums rum-tumming everywhere So prepare Say a prayer Send the word, send the word to beware We'll be over We're coming over And we won't come back till it's over, over there - The first United States troops arrive in Paris on July 3rd and have a parade on the 4th.

With thousands of Parisians cheering them on, an American battalion marches to the tomb of Lafayette and declares, "Lafayette, we are here."

Tonight, on this stage, we have two flags carried by the 1st Division, 16th Infantry, 2nd Battalion of the United States Army in Paris.

[audience applauding] Let us take you back to July 4th, 1917, with those flags from that moment.

Johnny, get your gun, get your gun, get your gun Take it on the run, on the run, on the run Hear them calling you and me Every son of liberty Hurry right away, no delay, go today Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad Tell your sweetheart not to pine To be proud her boy's in line Over there Over there Send the word, send the word over there That the Yanks are coming The Yanks are coming The drums rum-tumming everywhere So prepare Say a prayer Send the word, send the word to beware We'll be over We're coming over And we won't come back till it's over Over there [audience applauding] - This brings us to the spring of 1918.

It's often overlooked, but among the very first United States troops to make it to the front lines to help the Allies are Black-Americans, and at the center of it all is James Reese Europe.

In 1903 at age 23, he arrives in New York City, escaping the Jim Crow South.

He works as a composer and a band leader.

He starts the Clef Club, part booking agency and part social club.

But his eye is on more than music.

He organizes for Black citizens a music union and a music school.

- I've done my best to put an end to this discrimination in the music industry.

I am not bitter about it.

After all, it is about a portion of a price my race must pay in its fight for a place in the sun.

- [John] And the creative output that follows, it's breathtaking.

- I write and record one of the major songs of the day, "Ballin' the Jack," later brought to the screen by Gene Kelly and Judy Garland.

First you put your two knees close up tight Then you swing 'em to the left And you swing 'em to the right Step around the floor kind of nice and light Then you twist around and twist around With all your might Stretch your lovin' arms straight out in space Then you do the Eagle Rock with style and grace Swing your foot way round and bring it back Now that's what I call ballin' the jack Ballin' the jack [bright jazz music] Ballin' the jack [audience applauding] [bright jazz music] - And then in 1912, James Reese Europe creates a remarkable event that passes beyond everything else.

He brings an all-Black, 150-person chorus, 125-person orchestra, and 14 pianos facing back to back to this stage right here at Carnegie Hall.

It's the kind of music sensation that Nick sees at Jay Gatsby's parties.

[drum booms] - There was a boom of the bass drum and the orchestra leader cried out suddenly, "Ladies and gentlemen, at the request of Mr.

Gatsby, we are now gonna play for you a work which attracted so much attention at Carnegie Hall last May, 'The Jazz History of the World.'"

- [John] Let me take you there.

On the evening of May 2nd, 1912, at 8:00 PM, this hall is packed.

Every seat you are sitting in is taken.

It's standing room only.

And James Reese Europe opens the concert with his "Clef Club March."

[bright jazz music] - Standing on this stage, in this very spot, I make my plea for the formation of a National Guard unit in Harlem, a long-held wish of many Black citizens in this city.

And in 1916, the governor of New York will finally authorize it as the 15th National Guard.

For the pride of the 15th, the commanding officer wants a band.

He asks one very high-qualified soldier to form it and lead it, me.

[chuckles] And I give him a band, all right, a 60-piece band playing syncopated music, jazz style music like no other band.

[jazzy orchestral music] [jazzy orchestral music continues] [jazzy orchestral music continues] [audience applauding] - Training camp does not go well for the 15th in Spartanburg, South Carolina.

They experience one racially charged incident after another.

The place is about to explode.

Thanks to the help of the undersecretary of the Navy, a young Franklin Delano Roosevelt, they manage to get out of there.

Roosevelt uses the one tool at his disposal.

A great troop ship picks them up in New York City, headed for France.

And as they pull away from the docks, they're leaving Spartanburg, the race riots of East St.

Louis and Houston, and the lynchings across the South and the West, to fight a war for democracy.

After nearly two weeks at sea, on New Year's Day, 1918, thanks to the United States Navy, they arrive.

Lieutenant Europe and his band march off their ship playing a syncopated French national anthem to a stunned and then thrilled French audience.

This is the moment, the very moment that jazz comes to France.

[bright jazz music] [bright jazz music continues] Spring 1918, the Germans launch a series of massive actions.

The Germans have signed a treaty with Russians, and now they can move over a million men from the Eastern Front to the Western Front.

They're gonna run the table before the United States can even get its feet on the ground.

And Vera Brittain sees the Germans coming.

- I shall never forget the crushing tension of those extreme days.

Nothing had ever quite equaled them before.

Not the Somme, not Arras, not Passchendaele.

For into our minds crept for the first time the secret, incredible fear that we might lose the war.

- The Germans are now just 34 miles from Paris.

John J. Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force, has pledged never to give up any of his troops to the command of foreign officers, but he's now forced to do something.

He sends the 15th to the French.

To Pershing, these Black soldiers were dispensable.

But they make themselves indispensable.

Again and again at the front lines they earn their nickname, the Harlem Hellfighters.

They'll be awarded medal after medal for their heroics.

They arrive at the front with about 2,000 men.

800 of them will not come home.

James Reese Europe writes to his friend, future jazz great, Eubie Blake.

- At the moment my hands are tied.

But if the war does not end me first, sure as God made man, I will be on top, and so far on top that it'll be impossible to pull me down.

Eubie, just stay at your job and take your medicine.

The thing to do is to build for the future.

And that's what I'm doing.

- In the spring of 1918, while the Harlem Hellfighters are on the front lines in France, Vera's serving in a hospital on the French coast.

- The world is mad and we are all its victims.

That is the only way to look at it.

A doomed 20-year-old German boy, beautiful in spite of his concave cheeks and agonized biting of his lips, asks me one evening how long he has before he dies.

It was not very long.

The screens were around his bed by the next afternoon.

I see men without faces, without eyes, without limbs, men disemboweled, men with hideous truncated stumps of bodies.

I wish those people who write so glibly about this being a holy war could see the effects of mustard gas, could see the men burnt and blistered all over, blind-eyes stuck together, fighting for breath with voices a mere whisper, saying that their throats are closing and they know they will choke to death.

- [John] A few months later, Vera is on leave back in England at her parents' home.

- There came the sudden loud clattering of the front door knocker, which always meant a boy with a telegram.

For a moment I thought my legs would not carry me to the door.

I opened and read it.

- We regret to inform you that Captain E.H.

Brittain, MC Sherwood Foresters, was killed in action in Italy on June 15th.

The Army Council expresses their sympathy.

- "No answer," I told the boy mechanically, and handed the telegram to my father.

- Edward is buried high up in the Dolomites in the Italian Alps where he was killed, along with 142 British soldiers.

Now the tragedy is complete.

Roland and Edward, Victor and Geoffrey, they're all dead.

Vera desperately wants to do it over, to erase her brother's death, to convince Roland to stay out of the war, to save her friends, Geoffrey and Victor.

But for Vera, there's no turning back the clock.

- For the first time I realized.

With all that full realization meant the dead were dead and would never return.

- The story of Quentin Roosevelt brings us to the summer of 1918 and the very edge of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive.

Quentin is the fifth and youngest child of Edith and Theodore Roosevelt.

The family moves into the White House in 1901.

Quentin has his run of the White House, stuffs the family pony into the White House elevator, fires spitballs at the portrait of President Andrew Jackson, and starts pillow-fights with the president of the United States, the commander in chief of all U.S.

forces.

TR just loves it all, and he makes picture drawings of the children.

Quentin goes to a local public school.

A visitor from Europe asks him, "How does it feel to go to school with common boys?"

- I don't know what you mean.

My father says there's only four kinds of boys, good boys, bad boys, tall boys, and short boys.

That's all the kind of boys there are.

- August 4th, 1916, marks the event of the Newport summer season, the coming out of Flora Payne Whitney, the daughter of a Vanderbilt and a Whitney.

"The New York Times" is there to cover it, for these are two of the wealthiest families in the United States.

Flora's date and guest for three days, 18-year-old Quentin Roosevelt.

They dance all night.

At dawn they swim in the sea together.

It's a romantic readiness right out of "Gatsby."

I met you in a garden in an old Kentucky town The sun was shining down You wore a gingham gown I kissed you as I placed a yellow tulip in your hair Upon my coat you pinned a rose so rare Time has not changed your loveliness You're just as sweet to me I love you, yet I can't forget The days that used to be [bright music] When you wore a tulip A sweet yellow tulip And I wore a big red rose When you caressed me 'Twas then heaven blessed me What a blessing no one knows You made life cheery when you called me deary 'Twas was down where the bluegrass grows Your lips were sweeter than julep When you wore that tulip And I wore a big red rose [bright music] [bright music continues] Your lips were sweeter than julep When you wore that tulip And I wore A big red rose [audience applauding] - When the United States enters the war, Quentin and his brothers enlist.

Airplanes are the new thing, and Quentin, now 21, dreams of being a pilot for the U.S.

Army.

TR knows his son will get his wish because he secretly arranges for it.

Complicity in a decision he will find hard to forget.

Quentin and Flora are engaged.

And shortly thereafter he's ordered to France.

- As men and women ship overseas, over 13,000 songs pour into the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress, a record of a national farewell, some patriotic, some funny, some forlorn.

When I'm through with the arms of the Army I'll come back to the arms of you When the lines of the foe we are taking My arms will be aching for you, they'll be breaking Oh, you know I love you But that old flag above you You know I love it too So when I'm through with the arms of the Army I'll come back to the arms of you Little Mary's beau said I've got to go I must fight for Uncle Sam Standing in the crowd, Mary called aloud Fare thee well, my lovin' man All the girls said Ain't he nice and tall Mary answered yes and that's not all If he can fight like he can love Oh, what a soldier boy he'll be If he's just half as good in a trench As he was in the park on a bench Then every Hun had better run And find a great big linden tree I never saw him in a real good scrap But you're a goner when you're in his lap And if he fights Like he can love Why then it's good night, Germany [gentle music] Life is a book that we study Some of its leaves bring a sigh There it was written, my buddy That we must part, you and I Nights are long Since you went away I think about you All through the day My buddy My buddy No buddy quite so true - From his air base in France, Quentin's letters tell of crashes and crack ups and endless rain.

The base, he writes, is a sea of gumbo mud.

He comes down with the Spanish flu, a worldwide pandemic in 1918.

50 million people will die from it.

Luckily Quentin recovers, and always sticking up for the common boys, he's now one of the most popular officers on the base.

Quentin's lucky to have his friend from his school days with him, a pilot named Hamilton Coolidge.

Out of a Greek tradition, Hamilton and Quentin cut a gold coin in half.

Proof of life that one can send to the other if captured.

As June comes around, the United States is facing significant losses.

The Marines suffer 5,000 casualties in their storied victory at Belleau Wood.

Flora paces the floors with concern.

She pours out letters to Quentin.

Miss your voice The touch of your hand Just long to know That you'll understand My buddy My buddy Your buddy misses you Your buddy Misses you [audience applauding] - July 14, 1918, Quentin heads out on a patrol, flying with a squad of nine planes.

They run into a formation of nine German planes.

All 18 planes engage.

The counts vary, but they all end up in the same place.

Quentin's plane plunges downward.

Theodore Roosevelt writes a letter.

- It is no use pretending that Quentin's death is not very terrible.

I most earnestly hope that time will be very merciful to Flora and that in a few years she will keep Quentin only as a loving memory of her golden youth, and she will find happiness with another good, kind man.

As for Mother, she will ache for Quentin until she dies.

I would not for all the world have had him fail fearlessly to do his duty, but it is useless for me to pretend that it is not very bitter to see that good, gallant, tenderhearted boy leave life at its crest.

- And it's here that we see Quentin and Gatsby echo each other.

They fly planes and hydroplanes, they gamble with life, and they have, as Nick puts it in the novel, "incorruptible dreams."

- If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, and there was something gorgeous about Gatsby, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that would register earthquakes thousands of miles away.

His responsiveness had nothing to do with creative temperament.

Rather it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I had never found in any other person, and which it is likely that I'll never find ever again.

- Like Gatsby, there is something gorgeous about Quentin, something stolen from us when this war kills him.

Quentin's crash site and original burial site are on top of a hill overlooking a small town.

On our trip, Harrison and I struggle up this hill.

We slog through the mud.

And we hear guns firing nearby.

Unfortunately, no one has bothered to tell us it's boar hunting season.

[audience laughing] Harrison's not phased by this.

I'm moving into a level one panic.

[audience laughing] And when we reach the top of this hill, we find a marker for Quentin still there.

And we look down at this little town below.

And it's a moving moment, you have to understand.

Because I know from the marker, this is the very spot Edith Roosevelt visits in February of 1919, right after the war ends.

She's here for her son.

She kneels down in this mud at the grave site and she says the Lord's Prayer.

And all I can think about as I stand there with my son, is how hard that must have been.

Just as Vera will never leave Roland behind, Flora will never leave Quentin behind.

In the Harvard Library you'll find a box of Flora's keepsakes.

And I can tell you that opening that box is like opening her heart.

Letters from Quentin, pictures of the two of them, dried flowers from his grave site.

And at the bottom of the box is half of the gold coin he split with Hamilton Coolidge.

Proof of life.

In that box you can feel the tears, the tears of Vera as she held Roland's mud-covered uniform.

The tears of Flora as she put away Quentin's half of that gold coin, the children they would never have, the years of love they would never know.

What'll I do when you Are far away And I am blue, what'll I do What'll I do When I am wondering who Is kissing you What'll I do What'll I do With just a photograph To tell my troubles to When I'm alone With only dreams of you That won't come true What'll I do [gentle orchestral music] [swelling orchestral music] What'll I do With just a photograph To tell my troubles to When I'm alone With only dreams of you That won't come true What'll I do That won't come true What'll I do [audience applauding] - As we walk down the hill, something else draws our attention on the map.

We came to see Quentin's crash site, but now I realize that the American 42nd Division is just around the corner when Quentin crashes.

I know all about the 42nd Division because in it is a soldier named Sol Monsky.

Sol Monsky is my great uncle from Montgomery, Alabama.

I cannot explain to you how my father's family, a Jewish-Polish family escaping the pogroms, ends up in Montgomery, Alabama.

The family story is they got off on the wrong train stop and just stayed.

The day after Quentin's crash, the Germans slam right into Sol's division, the 42nd Division.

Back home in Montgomery, there's news of this big battle.

But for six long weeks, there's absolutely no word from Sol.

The family knows what comes next.

They wait for that telegram from the War Department until a letter with a French postmark arrives.

- Sergeant Sol Monsky begged me to send you this letter.

He took part on July 15th in an attack which the courageous soldiers of America fought side-by-side with their French brothers, and he as well.

We are happy and proud to count you among our allies.

We have waited for you for four years, and we were sure that America would take part in the war of right.

Victory is certain.

Mademoiselle Germaine Herbillion, La Chef, France.

- But there is no relief for Sol.

The now battle-tested 42nd Division is pushed into a counter offensive.

The Croix Farm and the Ourcq River run red with the blood of United States soldiers.

And as they're being slaughtered on the fields by the Ourcq River, Sol's commanding officer is shot dead.

And Sergeant Sol Monsky, my great uncle, takes command of his machine gun unit and he pushes forward with the attack.

And for this, he will receive the Silver Star for Gallantry in Action.

And now a century later, Harrison and I stand on the spot where Sol earned the Silver Star.

It's a strange feeling.

One of Sol's fellow officers writes a description of this battlefield at the end of the day.

For me, this explains once and for all why Sol never talks about the war.

- The blood-red sun holds for a moment before setting.

It bathes the field in a rich glow like a flaming Remington canvas.

On the field, dead bodies abound, pitifully strewn about in grotesque attitudes of supplication.

Some pitch forward on their faces.

Some crumble forward on their knees as if trying to rise.

Some are in repose, as if asleep.

Lifeless fingers still clutching lifeless cigarettes.

- With no time to rest, Sol and his division are ordered to move forward.

Heading to the Meuse-Argonne, they leave the dead behind, they pick themselves up, and they keep moving.

[dramatic music] Fading away like the stars of the morning Losing their light in the glorious sun Thus would we pass from the earth And its toiling Only remembered for what we have done Only remembered Only remembered Only remembered for what we have done Thus would we pass in the earth And its toiling Only remembered For what we have done [dramatic music] Where are they running Why are they falling Fewer, still fewer Than what was begun Ghost in the morning mist Voicelessly calling Only remembered For what we have done Only remembered Only remembered Only remembered For what we have done Ghost in the morning mist Voicelessly calling Only remembered For what we have done We'll be over We're coming over Who'll sing the anthem And who'll tell the story Will the line hold Will it scatter and run Shall we at last be united in glory Only remembered For what we have done Only remembered Only remembered Only remembered For what we have done Shall we at last be united in glory Only remembered For what we have done [audience applauding] - Now, walking through the fields of France, Harrison and I reach November, 1918.

We stand on the fields of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive where 25,000 Americans are killed.

Jay Gatsby puts himself right in the middle of these fields.

[bright music] - Then came the war, old sport.

It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seem to bear an enchanted life.

In the Argonne Forest I took two machine gun detachments so far forward that there was a half-mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldn't advance.

We stayed there two days and two nights.

And when the infantry came up at last, they found the insignia of three German divisions among the piles of dead.

I was promoted to be a major, and every allied government gave me a decoration.

Even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea.

- No one in 1925 could miss what Jay Gatsby just told Nick.

He was part of the famous Lost Battalion.

Every kid on every block in every town in the United States knows this story.

In the novel, Jay Gatsby is in charge.

But in real life, a soldier named Charles Whittlesey is in charge.

Jay Gatsby is Charles Whittlesey, or at least wants to be a war hero just like him.

What happens to Charles Whittlesey in the Argonne Forest is the stuff of legend.

And it all starts with the 77th Division of New York City, the Liberty Division.

The ranks of the 77th are filled with immigrants.

And they're sent for training to Camp Upton in Yaphank, Long Island.

25% of the 77th is Jewish, all from the Lower East Side.

Irish boys, Italian boys, Asian boys, Native American boys, and farm boys from the West fill out the ranks.

At Camp Upton, the immigrants speak 43 different languages and dialects.

The press makes fun of them and writes, "They're not to be trusted."

One of the immigrants sent to Camp Upton is a songwriter, Israel Isidore Bailin.

At Camp Upton, he writes a revue to entertain the troops.

He calls it, "Yip Yip Yaphank."

The music is later published under his stage name, Irving Berlin.

[bright band music] I've been a soldier quite a while And I would like to state That life is simply wonderful The Army food is great I sleep with 97 others in a wooden hut I love them all, they all love me It's very lovely, but Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning Oh, how I'd love to remain in bed For the hardest blow of all Is to hear the bugler call You gotta get up, you gotta get up You gotta get up this morning Someday I'm going to murder the bugler Someday they're going to find him dead And then I'll get the other pup The guy who wakes the bugler up And spend the rest of my life in bed [singers laughing] [audience laughing] There's dirty work to be done in the Army And it's not much fun It's the kind of work that's done Without the aid of a gun [gunshot booms] [audience laughing] The boys who work with the cooks in the kitchen Holler out for peace For they have to do the dirty work And they're called the kitchen police Poor little me I'm a KP I scrub the mess hall Upon bended knee Against my wishes I wash the dishes To make this wide world safe for democracy Mr.

Wilson, Mr.

Wilson Won't you kindly lend an ear To what we think is a bright idear [singers catcalling] - What's the idea?

It is very necessary That the boys are in good cheer So that they can do their best And here's what we suggest Send a lot of jazz bands over there To make the boys feel glad Send a troop of Alexanders With the jazz band down in Flanders And make 'em play a lot of snappy airs The kind that makes you dance It isn't just ammunition and food You gotta keep 'em in a happy mood So hurry up and send a troop of jazz bands Over to France [whistle trills] [bright jazz music] It isn't just ammunition and food [bright jazz music] - Whoa!

You gotta keep 'em in a happy mood So hurry up and send a troop of jazz bands You gotta get up, you gotta get up You gotta get up this morning Hurry up and send a troop of jazz bands I wash the dishes Over to France For little me [bright jazz music] [audience applauding] - At the last minute, Berlin decides to cut one of his songs from the revue.

He'll save it for another war.

While the storm clouds gather Far across the sea Let us swear allegiance To a land that's free Let us all be grateful For a land so fair As we raise our voices In a solemn prayer [gentle music] God bless America Land that I love Stand beside her And guide her Through the night with a light from above From the mountains To the prairies To the oceans white with foam God bless America My home, sweet home God bless America My home Sweet Home [audience applauding] - Charles Whittlesey shows up at Camp Upton discovering he may be in for more than he bargained for.

43 different languages and dialects is a lot.

He grew up in rural areas.

First Wisconsin, then Massachusetts.

The death of two of his siblings, especially his nine-year-old sister, make him aware of the tenuous nature of life.

And by the time he enters Williams College, he's six foot two and described as a tree towering over a brook.

He really has no conception of what he wants to do after college.

But like Gatsby, he's striving to do something bigger, something better.

At one, point Whittlesey tells a friend, he's thinking of becoming a missionary.

- Because I wanna do something I don't wanna do.

[audience laughing] - Like a lot of people who don't know what they want to do, he attends Harvard Law School.

[audience laughing] After graduation, he opens up a law practice in New York City with his law school classmate Bayard Pruyn.

At Camp Upton, the Army sizes up Charles Whittlesey.

They conclude he has the stuff, he has the brains, he has the skill to be good operations officer.

But definitely not a field officer.

By the summer of 1918, the 77th is in France along with the rest of the American Army and headed to the front lines.

Vera's back in France too.

- I was leaving Courtes to go back to the ward when I had to wait to let a large contingent of troops march past me.

They were swinging rapidly and had an unusual quality of bold vigor.

Their tall, straight figures were in vivid contrast to the undersized armies we had grown accustomed to.

I wondered who are they, watching them move with such rhythm, such dignity, such serene consciousness of self-respect.

I heard, "Look, here are the Americans."

I pressed forward with the others to watch the United States physically entering the war.

- Captain Harry Truman, an artillery officer, is headed for the front lines too.

- Dear Bess, you have no idea what an immense responsibility it is to take 194 men to the front.

They are absolutely dependent on my small ability to think and act right at the right time for their lives.

If I should go up there and get them all killed and not shot myself, I'd certainly never be able to look anyone in the face again.

I then trust in the Lord and hope that I am lucky.

Love, Harry.

- By the end of August, 1918, the Allies hatch a bold plan to end the war, a coordinated attack all along the Western Front.

The Americans are assigned a particularly dangerous sector.

This is the Meuse-Argonne, an area filled with traps, an area that has the potential to crush the entire United States Army, all of it.

Just prior to the start of this battle, Whittlesey, who you remember was never supposed to be a field commander, is promoted major and given command of 700 men.

And to help out Whittlesey, the Army assigns him Captain George McMurtry.

At least by New York City standards, it's not a bad combination.

Whittlesey, the New York lawyer, is matched with McMurtry, the New York stockbroker.

[audience laughing] Ah.

Good luck to them.

The American sector for the attack is about 20 miles wide, running from the Argonne Forest to the Meuse River at Verdun.

It's absolutely critical that they take and hold the northern half of the Argonne Forest.

It cannot be left in the hands of German artillery.

Hurry up, hurry up now, America Don't you wait It's too late if we dream Wake them up, wake them up now, America Make them fear when your eagle screams - [John] The forest is heavily fortified and defended.

The French lost 70,000 men trying to retake this forest from the Germans.

It's already filled to the brim with human remains.

[bright music] England sons, dear old France, and Italy Fight for rights with their backs to the law Do your best, make the test now, America Hurry up, come across at their call - The United States Army is thrown into this battle.

15 divisions, 1.2 million soldiers, 90,000 horses, 3,000 artillery pieces, 800 airplanes, 400 tanks.

And moving this massive army into position falls on the shoulders of one young soldier, Colonel George C. Marshall.

And it's Marshall's plan that makes it work.

Marshall decides to move the troops at night under the cover of darkness.

10 nights, 100 miles.

Sheets of rain pour down on them.

Roads of mud engulf them.

Follow on Follow on Grab a gun, get the Hun on the run See the tears of France are falling Hear the voice of Belgium calling Come on, Yanks Fill the ranks Do your share for the ones over there Over there Now's the time, fall in line Let's go over the line Follow on Follow on - September 26, 4:20 AM, Marshall code names it D-Day, H-Hour.

The United States Army stands at the Meuse-Argonne.

The U.S.

lines are packed.

Federal Army units as well as National Guard units, state after state after state.

The flags of these units cover the line, and two of them are here with us tonight.

The flag of Battery B, and the flag of Battery E. And as the artillery opens up, you can see these flags boldly flapping in the wind.

Harry Truman writes that it looks like the sky itself is on fire.

So prepare Say a prayer Send the word, send the word to beware We'll be over Over We're coming over Over And we won't come back Till it's over, over there - October 2nd, Whittlesey pushes deep into the Argonne Forest.

But where are the battalions covering his left and right flanks?

Whittlesey stops.

Back at headquarters, General Robert Alexander, well known as a bully and a liar, even to his own men, now tells Whittlesey one of the great lies of American history.

- Your flanks are covered.

Proceed ahead regardless of losses.

- Whittlesey and McMurtry under direct orders, push forward.

The stockbroker and the lawyer, they get it done.

Men die.

Casualties grow.

And now, they're so deep behind German lines that they are surrounded.

And as night begins to fall, they arrange themselves in a 400-yard long, 100-yard wide, oblong perimeter.

They call it "the pocket."

And from here they're contesting control of the forest.

A hundred years later, Harrison and I stand in the pocket.

It's frightening even now.

These tall trees, they block the sunlight.

And here that night, dug in are the men from Yaphank, the shop workers, the dock loaders, the newspaper hawkers, the deli owners, the farm boys.

Off and on the rain pours down.

The men huddle in shell holes filled with pools of mud.

Day two, no water, no rations, no medical supplies.

There are three ways to communicate back to headquarters.

Wires, runners, birds.

The wires are cut, the runners are dead, and Whittlesey has only one precious resource left, a contingent of homing pigeons.

The Germans know all about these pigeons, and they're making every effort to shoot 'em down.

One of the two pigeon masters, Omar Richards, is a French Canadian.

He's from Upstate New York.

And I suspect that he comforts his dear pigeons in French.

His favorite bird is named Cher Ami.

Day three, American artillery miles away tries to give the units some support, but instead of dropping a protective umbrella around them, shells are falling on them.

Arms and legs are being blown off.

Whittlesey goes down the line, all six foot two of him, trying to keep the men from breaking and running.

- Don't worry, there are 2 million American troops coming to save us, 2 million.

- [John] Whittlesey writes a note for a pigeon.

- We are along the road parallel to 276.4.

Our artillery is dropping a barrage directly on us.

For heaven's sake, stop it!

[dramatic music] - Omar reaches for one of his last two birds, hands shaking.

It escapes into the fire and is killed.

Whittlesey yells- - Get another bird!

- Omar reaches for his final bird, his favorite bird, Cher Ami.

Under fire, the bird flaps frantically, circles twice, lands in a tree, terrified, not moving.

Whittlesey yells- - What the hell?

Do something!

- The men yell at the bird, but this bird speaks no English.

Omar climbs the tree, and while shaking the branches, he yells- [speaker yelling in French] - Every German gun in the forest opens up, and the bird flies!

A breathless hour later, 25 miles later, with a wound in its breast and a leg shot off, Cher Ami lands at the pigeon loft for the 77th Division.

This bird does not speak English, but for God's sakes, the message does.

[audience applauding] Taking this little bird at his word, an American battalion pushes forward to try to relieve Whittlesey and his men before they're all dead.

Day four, an air resupply is attempted.

Two pilots are killed.

Day five, an elite German flamethrower unit arrives.

Americans are going to be burned alive.

Rising up with bayonets and knives, they repel the German raid.

Day six, they're starving.

The wounded are in agony and the Germans send a message.

- The suffering of the wounded can be heard in our lines.

We recommend to your commander to surrender.

- In response, Whittlesey calmly and simply orders his men to remove anything white from the lines that might be mistaken as a sign of surrender, and a long night follows.

Day seven, U.S.

troops finally link up with them.

Through pure determination, these boys, these Americans, have held the position.

And after the wounded and dead are finally pulled out, Whittlesey, who started with 700 men, has just 194 left.

He will never let go of this burden.

The unit is cleaned up for this photograph.

The uniforms are fresh.

Faces are not.

The Army films Whittlesey and his cleaned-up men as they leave the forest.

It makes good press coverage.

You can see Whittlesey in the front at the far right.

He's turning back to look at his men as if he's too shy to face the cameras.

Every American unit now continues onward.

Hill after hill, town after town.

Two young officers do a lot of the pushing.

One named MacArthur, another named Patton.

They're rather competitive in their efforts to die.

The combined pressure of Belgian, British, American, French forces is now felt all along the German lines, and those lines are finally broken, and for the first time in four long years, the feeling of liberation is in the streets.

[audience applauding] The Armistice, a peace treaty, is negotiated in a rail car about 80 miles north of Paris.

Dining car 2419D, previously in the service of the Orient Express.

The Armistice is too much and too little.

It's economically punitive.

But at the same time, the German army maintains a force of a hundred thousand to grow on.

Hitler will tell the German people they never lost the war.

Indeed, 20 years later, rail car 2419D will roll right into World War II.

It will be captured by the Germans in 1940.

And Hitler, to his great joy, will demand that the French surrender, in the very same car.

The Armistice is signed at 5: 00 AM, November 11th, 1918.

But it does not take effect until 11: 00 AM.

There are 10,000 casualties that morning before the guns go silent at 11:00 AM, forever remembered as the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

1919 is the homecoming, and New Yorkers give the Harlem Hellfighters a parade to beat all parades.

We're good at that.

Every newspaper records the infectious excitement of the entire city.

- We march up Fifth Avenue home to Harlem, my band leading the way.

And it all happens right down the block from here, from Carnegie Hall.

I compose a new song, "Looking to the Future."

Hello, Central Hello, hurry Give me 403 Hello, Mary, hello, deary Yes, yes, this is me Just landed on the pier I found the telephone We've been parted for a year Thank God at last I'm home Haven't time to talk a lot Though I'm feeling mighty gay Little sweet forget-me-not I've only time to say All of no man's land is ours Dear Now I've come back To you, my honey true Wedding bells in Juney June All will tell their tuney tune That victory's won, the war is over The whole wide world is wreathed in clover Then hand-in-hand we'll stroll through life, dear Just think how happy we will be I mean, we three We'll pick a bungalow amongst the fragrant boughs And spend a honeymoon with the blooming flowers All of no man's land is ours - In the end, Black servicemen returned home to discrimination, segregation, and Jim Crow.

In the South, if a Black man comes home in a uniform, he may find he will be ordered to strip it off right there in the train station.

Many of us pack up our uniforms away for decades.

Some of our family members never even know that we served.

But I keep working, recording song after song.

I want my music to be the agent of change.

- Six months after the war ends, backstage, James Reese Europe is killed by one of his own band members, a Hellfighter who suffers from shell shock.

The war kills James Reese Europe after all.

Tonight, to honor James Reese Europe, in his hall, Carnegie Hall, we have with us his grandson, granddaughter, and great-grandson.

Europe family, would you please stand?

[majestic music] [audience applauding] Charles Whittlesey comes home, is given a promotion, and is highly-decorated, just like Jay Gatsby.

Even Montenegro, little Montenegro down by the Adriatic Sea honors him.

- I want absolutely none of it.

- He breaks his silence only when he sees others in need.

Wounded veterans, the population starving in Germany, immigrants attacked during the Red Scare.

The very men who fought for him under his command in the pocket.

He speaks out at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.

- If I am ever pessimistic about the future of this country, I will always feel assured that I can go to the crowded corners of this city and pick out Herskowitz, Ceriglio, and O'Brien, and know that in them I can find the kind of men that are needed.

- Even after all he's endured during the war, Charles Whittlesey is still striving.

Gatsby's always striving too, and throughout the novel, he's symbolically reaching out toward the green light he sees across the water.

Whittlesey, Gatsby, always reaching for that difficult thing called America.

In 1926, Fitzgerald puts it into words.

- France was a land, England a people, but America having about it still the quality of an idea, was harder to utter.

It was the graves at Shiloh, the country boys dying in the Argonne for a phrase that was empty before their bodies withered.

It was a willingness of the heart.

- Charles Whittlesey, with a willingness of the heart, receives the Medal of Honor one month after the war ends, on the Boston Common.

20,000 people come to see it.

Vera Brittain will take 15 years to write her book, "Testament of Youth."

- I write of my work as a nurse on the front lines and of lost love.

My Roland, Edward, Victor, Geoffrey, the folly of war.

- The entire first print of her book sells out in days.

"The New York Times" says it's "heartbreakingly beautiful."

- After I publish my book, I push ahead.

As a writer, lecturer, and poet, I speak out, fighting for feminism, for peace, for love, and for social justice.

- She dies in 1970, and as requested in her will, her ashes are spread over her brother's grave, a grave that remains high in the Dolomite Mountains alongside 142 British soldiers.

Last December, I hike up into those mountains and I leave flowers for Edward, for Vera, and all those dead soldiers.

Flora will go on to have two marriages and four children.

- When Mother dies, she leaves me a private art collection run as a private museum and housed in four townhouses on 8th Street in the Greenwich Village.

It's quite an effort to maintain it.

"Sell it or keep it after I die," Mother declared.

I chose to keep it.

And I turned it into a public museum for all.

I put my focus on collections with American art at a time when American art did not rank with European art.

In fact, when Mother proposed to donate the entire collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1929, they rejected it.

I make a home for American artists like Edward Hopper, George Bellows, Jasper Johns, and Horace Pippin, a Harlem Hellfighter.

- And now it's one of the greatest museums in the world, the Whitney Museum of American Art.

[audience applauding] F. Scott Fitzgerald will publish "The Great Gatsby" in April of 1925 and will continue writing for the rest of his life.

In December of 1927, his off-and-on friend for decades, Ernest Hemingway, will send him a draft of his World War I novel, "A Farewell to Arms."

At the end of the novel, Hemingway writes truth as he sees it.

- The world breaks everyone.

And afterward many are strong at the broken places.

But those that will not break, it kills.

It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially.

If you're none of these, you can be sure it will kill you too, but there will be no special hurry.

- F. Scott tells Hemingway it's one of the greatest passages ever written in the English language.

F. Scott Fitzgerald dies in December of 1940 at the age of 44.

He's broke and he's broken.

He receives $13 in royalties for "The Great Gatsby" that year.

It will not be rediscovered until World War II, when 155,000 copies are printed in paperback for U.S.

troops, small enough to fit in their pocket.

And this is one of those 155,000 copies.

On the back of it, it reads, "Here is a story that is American to its core."

Cher Ami is awarded the French Croix de Guerre with palm and comes home to the United States a hero.

[audience applauding] He dies of his wounds in June of 1919 and is preserved with loving care.

He's a class four national treasure and can only be moved with two guards.

You can go visit him at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.

[gentle music] My great uncle, Uncle Sol, comes home and lives the rest of his life in my grandparents' home, my father's home.

The Sayre family lives on the same street in Montgomery.

They tell the Monskys that their daughter, Zelda, has just married some writer named F. Scott Fitzgerald.

My father, the boy in the white pants on the right, will never forget how Sol wakes up sweating and shaking and screaming, nightmares from the war.

Two years ago my father is dying, and he knows it, and gives me one thing for safe-keeping, Uncle Sol's Silver Star.

[audience applauding] Finally, the last person to come home from the war is the Unknown Soldier.

And for me, this is where the war actually ends.

Remarkably, the United States neither seeks nor takes any territory in World War I. In fact, the only land that the United States ends up with are leases for nine cemeteries for American dead.

Today, they're lovingly maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission of the United States government.

The bodies of a great number of these soldiers in these cemeteries are so damaged that they cannot be identified.

Their inscriptions all read the same.

"Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God."

[audience applauding] [gentle music] In 1921, Congress votes to create the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The Army randomly selects one unknown soldier from the nine cemeteries.

The soldier is carried from France across the Atlantic on the pride of the U.S.

fleet, the USS Olympia.

The body lies in state in the Capitol Rotunda, an honor never given before to a "common boy."

November 11th, 1921, is dedicated a national holiday.

This day will be our Veteran's Day.

And that morning, six riderless horses carry the Unknown Soldier from the Capitol Rotunda to Arlington National Cemetery.

The president, the Congress, the judiciary, the Army, the Navy, and 1,000 Gold Star Mothers march with them.

At Arlington, President Harding delivers his remarks.

The coffin is lowered into the tomb.

Chief Plenty Coups of the Apsaalooke tribe lays down his war bonnet and lance.

Charles Whittlesey and George McMurtry are honorary pallbearers.

Charles whispers to George.

- George, I shouldn't have come here.

Can't help but wonder if that's one of my men from the pocket.

I'll have nightmares tonight and hear the wounded screaming again.

- And the president's own Marine Band plays "Sursum Corda" by Edward Elgar.

[gentle orchestral music] [swelling orchestral music] [gentle orchestral music] [dramatic orchestral music] [dramatic orchestral music swells] [audience applauding] Not long after the ceremony, after paying his rent, clearing off his desk, Whittlesey boards a ship for Havana.

He's soon recognized and cannot avoid dinner at the captain's table.

The captain asks him if there's anything he can do for him.

The only thing Whittlesey asks for is the score of the Army-Navy game.

Captain gets it over the wireless.

He has a nightcap in the lounge with some of the passengers.

He looks rested, somehow relieved.

And for the first time in a long time when asked, he talks about the war.

Sometime after midnight, Charles Whittlesey jumps overboard.

He dies in the water, just like Jay Gatsby.

Charles Whittlesey is just 37 years old.

In his cabin, Whittlesey leaves nine letters.

They're lost to history, except for one, that you will find in the Williams College Library.

It's to his friend and former law partner, Bayard Pruyn.

- Dear Bayard, just a note to say goodbye.

I'm a misfit by nature and by training, and there's an end of it.

I'm sorry to wish upon you the job of executor, but there is very little to do.

I won't try to say anything personal, Bayard, because you and I understand each other.

Give my love to Edith.

As ever, Charles Whittlesey.

- The body of Charles Whittlesey is never found.

The Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery remains forever faceless.

Every day, all day long and all night long, an honor guard marches in front of his tomb.

21 steps across, 21 steps back.

It's a willingness of the heart.

It's America.

And as the honor guard takes those steps late at night in the stillness of the night, we hear the last line of "The Great Gatsby."

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

[gentle music] Nights are growing very lonely Days are very long I'm a-growing weary only Listening for your song Old remembrances are thronging Through my memory Till it seems the world is full of dreams Just to pull you back to me There's a long, long trail a-winding Into the land of my dreams Where the nightingales are singing And a wide moon beams It's a long, long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true Till the day when I'll be going Down that long, long trail with you And when they ask us How dangerous it was Oh, we'll never tell them No, we'll never tell them We spent our pay in some cafe And fought wild women night and day 'Twas the cushiest job we ever had And when they ask us It's a long, long trail And they're certainly going To ask us Into the land of my dreams It's a long, long time There's a long, long night Till my dreams come true Until my dreams come true Till the day when I'll be going Down that long, long trail with you [gentle orchestral music] Till the day when I'll be going Down that long, long trail With you [deep orchestral music] [audience applauding] [audience cheering]