Dos Passos' The Unknown Soldier

Whereasthe Congressoftheunitedstates byaconcurrentresolutionadoptedon the4thdayofmarch lastauthorizedthe Secretaryofwartocausetobebrought totheunitedstatesthe body of anAmericanwhowas

amemberoftheamericanexpeditionaryforceineuropewholosthislifeduringtheworldwar andwhoseidentityhasnotbeen establishedfor burial inthe

memorialamphitheatreofthenationalcemeteryatarlingtonvirginia

In the tarpaper morgue at Chalons-sur-Marne in the reek of chloride of lime and the dead, they picked out the pine box that held all that was left of

enie menie minie moe plenty other pine boxes stacked up there containing what they'd scraped up of Richard Roe

and other person or persons unknown. Only one can go.

How did they pick John Doe?

Make sure he ain't a dinge, boys,

make sure he ain't a guinea or a kike,

How can you tell a guy's a hunredpercent when all you've got's a gunnysack full of bones, bronze buttons stamped with the screaming eagle and a pair of roll puttees?

The day withal was too meaningful and tragic for applause. Silence, tears, songs and prayer, muffled drums and soft music were the instrumentalities today of national approbation.

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Where his chest ought to have been they pinned

the Congressional Medal, the D.S.C., the Medaille Militaire, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Italian gold medal, the Vitutea Militaire sent by Queen Marie of Rumania, the Czechoslovak Cross, the Virtuti Militari of the Poles, a wreath sent by Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, and a little wampum presented by a deputation of Arizona redskins in warpaint and feathers. All the Washingtonians brought flowers.

Woodrow Wilson brought a bouquet of poppies.

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Quoted above are the beginning and the end of "The Body of an American," which concludes the middle volume, "1919," in the trilogy "U.S.A.," written by John Dos Passos (1896-1970).

Today "U.S.A" is probably read only by students of American Literature, and possibly not much even then. Even I found it to be some tough, dry slogging, and I don't think I finished any of the volumes. But scattered through all three books are several dozen nuggets of pure literary gold. These are mini-biographies of a few pages each, covering various historical figures of his lifetime, such as J.P. Morgan, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie, Joe Hill, Nikola Tesla, Isadora Duncan, the Unknown Soldier, and of course Woodrow Wilson, written in a highly condensed, telescoped style, of which the above is a sample. I'm certain that Dos Passos invented this unique literary form, and for that alone he is well worth being remembered, and "U.S.A." is worth being on everyone's bookshelf, if only to be able to re-read, once every decade, those sections.