[MRM]

My son and I spent several days at Vimy Ridge last October on our tour of the Western Front during the centenary observance. We found the battlefields, museums and monuments to be as moving as you described. We didn’t see anyone we thought acted inappropriately or disrespectfully. The locals and tour guides all asked if we had a family connection to each battlefield we visited or if we had ancestors in the war. In the Canadian sector, such as Vimy, we were often taken for Canadians. We assured them that we were From Minnesota and we’re at least first cousins to the Canadians. All we met seemed genuinely grateful for the American involvement in the war and appreciative of our visit and sharing their commemoration. It was a very sobering and excellent experience.

The monument at Vimy Ridge appears on the surface to be marital and almost glorifying the dead, if not the war. But closer examination shows it contains substantial pacifist imagery. Memorials were quite controversial after the war because they were apt to be used by the powers that got us into the war as a justification for the war and a whitewash of history. The person who designed the Vimy Ridge Memorial became a pacifist after his experience in the war and wanted the memorial to reflect a desire for peace as a memorial to the dead, not a glorification if the battle, even while creating a monument that was grand enough to appear martial.