Lest We Forget the Great War

With Veterans Day nigh, I made a special point, when in Kansas City recently, to visit our National World War I Museum. It’s the official museum — so sayeth Congress — for the interpretation of our place as a combatant from April 6, 1917, the day of the war declaration, to the armistice on November 11, 1918, and the Treaty of Versailles. We came late to the labyrinth of slaughter, delusion, and intransigence but helped to end it, for a while.

The museum lies beneath the grounds surrounding the memorial obelisk, the Liberty Memorial Tower, built in the 1920s to honor those who served in the war, especially the 411 Kansas Cityans who died. The entrance signage and doors are inauspicious in that they give the impression of entering via a loading dock, but, once inside, you see that the museum nicely radiates in three efficient directions, one to the left for visitor amenities and one to the right for special exhibitions spaces. Straight ahead there’s a glass bridge under which is a field of 9,000 silk poppies, one for every 1,000 of the 9 million combatants killed in the war, and that’s just fatalities. I had to stand still for a moment and breathe deeply to contemplate so many dead and so many horribly wounded and how the war turned the world upside down.

About the Author

Brian T. Allen

Brian T. Allen is National Review’s art critic.

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With Veterans Day nigh, I made a special point, when in Kansas City recently, to visit our National World War I Museum. It’s the official museum — so sayeth Congress — for the interpretation of our place as a combatant from April 6, 1917, the day of the war declaration, to the armistice on November 11, 1918, and the Treaty of Versailles. We came late to the labyrinth of slaughter, delusion, and intransigence but helped to end it, for a while.

The museum lies beneath the grounds surrounding the memorial obelisk, the Liberty Memorial Tower, built in the 1920s to honor those who served in the war, especially the 411 Kansas Cityans who died. The entrance signage and doors are inauspicious in that they give the impression of entering via a loading dock, but, once inside, you see that the museum nicely radiates in three efficient directions, one to the left for visitor amenities and one to the right for special exhibitions spaces. Straight ahead there’s a glass bridge under which is a field of 9,000 silk poppies, one for every 1,000 of the 9 million combatants killed in the war, and that’s just fatalities. I had to stand still for a moment and breathe deeply to contemplate so many dead and so many horribly wounded and how the war turned the world upside down.