Aisne-Marne American Cemetery, France—1976A
fter 14 hours sandwiched into the cheap seats of an Air France flight and a couple more aboard a bus from Paris to Belleau, they were happy to stretch their legs among the grave markers of the American Cemetery. There were more than 2,000 of them here, including a couple-hundred marked simply “known but to God.”
Gunnery Sergeant Shake Davis walked reverently among them, his hiking boots barely making a dent in the plush, pristine grass, and noted most of the dead were from the 4th Martine Brigade, Allied Expeditionary Force or AEF. And most of them bought it right there at Belleau Wood, he knew, glancing north at a dark-green forest on the other side of the cemetery. One of the most pivotal and bloodiest battles of World War I was fought here w
