America’s Summertime World War One Commemorations – 2026

A  major Remembrance address was made on 25 July 2026 at Croix Rouge Farm, France, former battlefield of the 42nd Rainbow Division, by Monique Brouillet Seefried, Ph.D.  Monique served for 10 years as WWI Centennial Commissioner, was chair of the Croix Rouge Farm Memorial Foundation and is now on the board of advisors of the American Revolution Institute. In her speech, she also honored two other commemorative events that had proceeded the ceremony at Croix Rouge Farm.

It is always with intense emotion that I find myself among all of you today, like every year since its dedication in 2011, in front of this powerful memorial — The Rainbow Soldier, carrying his dead comrade, on a battlefield that saw one of the fiercest combats in WWI of the 42nd US Division. It is the work of the late British sculptor James Butler, and was commissioned through the generosity of the late Nimrod T. Frazer to remember his father and his fellow soldiers who fought on this battlefield 108 years ago.

In the United States, at a time we celebrate the 250th of the creation of our Nation, we also celebrate and honor our first alliance with France which made our Independence possible. And France does not forget the American soldiers who came to its rescue in WWI. This July, I’ve already attended two events remembering them.

Gold Star Mothers at the Sacred Soil Marker Rededication.

At Arlington, on July 5th, took place the rededication of the Sacred Soil Marker honoring American soldiers who died on French and Flemish battlefields in WWI. In 1929, the original marker conceived by the sculptor Gaston Deblaize, a French veteran of that war, was installed at Arlington containing soil of battlefields where the blood of American soldiers was shed. This marker was removed in 1938, due to deterioration, and almost lost to memory. Its restoration was a transatlantic project to honor Franco-American relations during the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States.

A delegation of Gold Star Mothers went to France to collect again this sacred soil, from mostly ABMC cemeteries, and it was placed in the restored marker which now stands in section 18 of Arlington cemetery. 

⇒  Read the entire article on the Roads to the Great War website here:

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