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The United States lost thousands of troops during World War I, and the government gave next-of-kin a choice about what to do with their fallen loved ones: ship them home for burial or leave them permanently in Europe, in makeshift graves that would be eventually transformed into cemeteries in France, Belgium, and England. World War I marked the first war in which the United States government and military took full responsibility for the identification, burial, and memorialization of those killed in battle, and as a result, the process of burying and remembering the dead became intensely political. The government and military attempted to create a patriotic consensus on the historical memory of World War I in which war dead were not only honored but used as a symbol to legitimize America's participation in a war not fully supported by all citizens.The saga of American soldiers killed in World War I and the efforts of the living to honor them is a neglected component of United States military history, and in this fascinating yet often macabre account, Lisa M. Budreau unpacks the politics and processes of the competing interest groups involved in the three core components of commemoration: repatriation, remembrance, and return. She also describes how relatives of the fallen made pilgrimages to French battlefields, attended largely by American Legionnaires and the Gold Star Mothers, a group formed by mothers of sons killed in World War I, which exists to this day. Throughout, and with sensitivity to issues of race and gender, Bodies of War emphasizes the inherent tensions in the politics of memorialization and explores how those interests often conflicted with the needs of veterans and relatives.

World War I, Mass Death, and the Birth of the Modern US Soldier: A Rhetorical History examines the United States government’s postwar ideological and rhetorical project in establishing permanent national military cemeteries abroad. Constructed throughout Europe where citizen-soldiers had fought and perished, and sacralized as American sites, these burial grounds simultaneously linked the nation’s war dead back to American soil and the national purpose rooted there, expressed the nation’s emerging prominent role on the world’s stage, and advanced the burgeoning icon of the “sacrificial, universal” US soldier. It draws upon untapped archival and historical materials from the WWI and interwar periods, as well as original on-site research, to show how the cemeteries came to display and advance the vision of the modern US soldier as “a global force for good.” Ultimately, within the visual display of overseas cemeteries we can detect the birth of “the modern US soldier”-a potent icon in which divergent emotions, memories, beliefs, and arguments of Americans and non-Americans have been expressed for a century.

Moffatt points out that a special highlight of this exhibition is a curated collection of photographs of Rockwell from his time in the Navy during World War I. \"The posters . . . demonstrate the power of visual images in our world,\" indicates Stephanie Haboush Plunkett, chief curator at Rockwell. The government promised to repay the bonds with tax-free interest Accompanying the Liberty Loan drives was a massive public relations campaign that utilized posters, public speakers, newspapers, brochures, and motion pictures to urge people to buy bonds.