CHRISTMAS WREATHS FOR SHILOH'S VETERANS

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 In 2007, Wreaths Across America started the nationwide tradition of placing Christmas wreaths on veterans’ graves and now includes 4600 participating locations, some of them at sea, and right now, more than 2 million volunteers like you are placing wreaths on veterans’ graves. This is our third year of participating in Wreaths Across America and we are proud to honor our veterans here at Shiloh.

Christmas time, is a season of celebrations, togetherness and remembrance. When we celebrate Christmas, invariably, we think of Christmases past - of our childhood, of our children’s childhood, of family and friends who once celebrated with us. Though sometimes poignant, we cherish those Christmas memories.

Today, we remember Shiloh’s veterans who served in the armed forces and may have spent Christmases far away from loved ones in hostile and lonely situations.

One of the veterans buried here is James H. King, ancestor of the late Shiloh trustee, Charles P. King. James King served in the US Army as a wagoner of the 19th Field Artillery, 5th Division, in World War I from 1917 to 1918. His division was known as the “Red Diamond Division.”

James King’s division was required to report for deployment on December 1, 1917, eight months after the US entered WWI - he was 23 years old at the time and spent that Christmas on the western front fighting to repel the Germans from Belgium and France.

Like all wars, WWI was fraught with misery as well as danger. Much of the time was spent in trenches often filled with mud, stagnant water, and debris from shelling, making it difficult to maintain hygiene. Rats and lice thrived there, contributing to the spread of diseases. While 53,000 Allied soldiers were killed in combat in WWI, more than 64,000 died from diseases and accidents. And even at Christmas, soldiers were hungry.

James King was a wagoner, and the duties of a wagoner included driving spring wagons, ambulances, and escort wagons and taking care of the horses and equipment used in transportation. This work likely exposed him to duty in rain, snow, and mud and constant exposure to hostile assault.

Before Mr. King arrived at the Western Front, the soldiers of both the German army and Allied armies, on Christmas Day in 1914, laid down their arms and met in a spontaneous truce in the no man’s land where they had been fighting. The German enlisted men began to sing Christmas songs and the Allied soldiers replied with their own. Soon they ventured into the combat zone and began to greet each other, exchange food, cigarettes and souvenirs, and to recover and bury their dead. Though the informal truce was not supported by the officers, it was a well remembered event by the soldiers and received wide reporting in the press.

In December 1917, when James King was at the front, German overtures to the British for truces at Christmas were recorded but without any success.  In some French sectors, singing and an exchange of thrown gifts was occasionally recorded, though these may simply have reflected a seasonal extension of the live-and-let-live approach common in the trenches.

So, James King’s Christmas on the Western front during WWI was likely a day like most others, cold, wet and miserable with little celebration.

Today, let’s remember him, and all of the veterans buried here, with a wreath to signify the joy of the Christmases that they may have missed while serving on our behalf.