endefrites

Ave et Vale

A. Piatt Andrew wrote in 1919:

“Yet the Field Service still lives and will live as long as the memory of any of us survives. As the years go by, opportunities will be found to perpetuate the old associations born during the war. In place of “old 21”, some other center will be found on the other side where we can meet in the midst of suggestions of France and the old days, where we can revive old friendships and relive old experiences. The history of the Field Service which is almost ready for the press will help to make permanent the record of our past. With mutual aid the “Bulletin”, reappearing from time to time, will help to keep alive some sort of contact not only with our common past, but with our individual futures.
But more than that, let us try to make of the comradeship born of the last four years, not merely an association of veterans of the war that is past, but a living organization with a vital purpose still to perform. […] In many such ways we can make the Old Field Service an active and important factor in promoting the same ends for which we have given ourselves in France, a factor which will continue to count in the world long after all of us are gone.”


Ave et Vale, American Field Service Bulletin Nr. 87, April 26, 1919