The Doughboy Foundation proudly announces that the 1500th consecutive sounding of “Daily Taps” at the National World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C. will take place at 5:00 p.m. EDT on July 2, 2025. This solemn tradition honors the 4.7 million Americans who served in WWI, while also paying tribute to all veterans from every branch of service and all wars.

The public is invited to attend this significant event, either in person at the National World War I Memorial, or virtually via YouTube livestream.

Since the completion of the Memorial, “Daily Taps” has become a powerful symbol of remembrance and gratitude. This daily performance has featured some of the most celebrated musicians in the nation, including 10-time Grammy Award-winning trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, as well as members of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. These esteemed artists have lent their talents to ensure the sacrifices of veterans are never forgotten.

“Daily Taps is a profound reminder of the courage, sacrifice, and service of those who defended freedom during World War I and beyond,” said Jari Villanueva, Executive Director of the Doughboy Foundation.

“This tradition connects the past to the present and ensures that their legacy lives on forever.”

July will feature two events in the Doughboy Foundation’s Summer Concert Series at the National World War I Memorial in Washington, DC.

On Thursday, July 3, at 7:00 p.m., The Hotel Paradise Orchestra will perform authentic charts–and some sparkling new arrangements–of classic jazz, plus a few sweet numbers, from 1920 to 1935. The band brings the early years of jazz and swing to life with music by Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Count Basie, Irving Berlin, and Baltimore’s own Cab Calloway and Eubie Blake, among others. Find out more about this swinging musical event, and RSVP to attend.

Postponed by inclement weather from its original date of June 19, on Thursday, July 14, at 7:00 p.m., the Doughboy Foundation’s American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) Headquarters Band will salute Juneteenth with a concert featuring the music of James Reese Europe and Noble Sissle, members of the famous 369th Regimental Band of WWI, known as the Harlem Hellfighters. The AEF will also perform music by Eubie Blake and others from the World War I era, including George M. Cohan, Irving Berlin, and others. Find out more about the great selection of music scheduled for this concert, and RSVP to attend.

Doughboy Foundation Executive Director Jari Villanueva traveled to Des Moines, Iowa, on June 14 to serve as the keynote speaker at the dedication of a historical marker commemorating the site where Black officers were trained during World War I and where the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps trained during World War II. The ceremony was held at the Fort Des Moines Museum located on the grounds of the former Army Fort. The historical marker honors 1,250 Black college graduates who received Army Officer training during World War I, along with over 72,000 women trained there during WWII. Read the whole story here, and learn how Fort Des Moines has an important personal meaning for Villanueva as well.

Writing for The Rogers Review website in  the Washington, D.C. area, Editor-in-Chief and Entertainment Reporter Dean Rogers had a lot of great words for the Doughboy Foundation’s recent production of the new World War I musical The Story of A Rose in May.  He says “the magnificent, marvelous Melissa Errico brought the story of her beloved Aunt Rose to life for the very first time. After witnessing this new musical unfolding right before my very eyes, I see nothing but great potential that this amazing story will be told to the world near and far.” And that’s just for starters! Read Rogers’ entire review, and find out why he thinks that “the people here will be forever grateful they came to see The Story of a Rose.” 

How did Gettysburg and the Great War shape Dwight Eisenhower and the United States? Explore this story and more at Eisenhower National Historic Site’s World War I Weekend on July 19 and 20, 2025. The National Park Service will offer special programming related to Dwight Eisenhower, Gettysburg’s own Camp Colt, and the American experience in World War I. This event will include a small living history contingent, as well as participation from the U.S. Navy History and Heritage Command, and the Doughboy Foundation. Find out more about this special World War I program, and other things to do at the Eisenhower NHS while there.

On Monday, June 16, 2025, the Fayette County Genealogical Society in Ohio hosted its annual summer cemetery tour. This year the tour was led by Ohio World War I Centennial Committee member Paul LaRue. The tour was of the historic Bloomingburg Cemetery, which was established in 1818 by the Bloomingburg Presbyterian Church. The Cemetery is also the final resting place of Sergeant John Wrobbel, Distinguished Service Cross Recipient from World War I. Napoleon is credited with the phrase “The Army marches on its stomach.” Read the entire article, and find out why Sergeant John Wrobbel is “the embodiment of the phrase.” 

John Chase’s sister Abby was helping their 80 year-old Uncle Jack DeWitt move out of his house in Oklahoma City, OK to an assisted living facility. They were going through the contents of the garage and she found a number of shoeboxes containing some old letters. She asked her uncle: “What are these Jack?”  He answered: “Oh, just some old letters my Dad wrote to his parents in Council Bluffs when he was in WWI.”

But “just some letters” turned out to vastly understate the situation. The ~80 letters from late 1917 to 1918 told the story of a soldier who had been gassed by German chemical weapons, wounded in the leg, and received a Purple Heart. Chase, after looking at them, “took it upon myself to try and do something with the letters and save them for posterity. Our family’s and perhaps even for history.” Learn how his mission with the letters became the new book Searching for John Dewitt: How 80 Forgotten Letters from WWI Reveals Timeless Lessons of Honor and Courage, and what Chase discovered about WWI in the writing process.

The psychology of leaving explores how people handle sudden departures, both emotionally and mentally. During World War I, millions left home without proper goodbyes or clear expectations. Families were often left waiting, unsure if they would see their loved ones again. These unresolved separations left deep emotional scars. Today, many still face similar exits—fast, incomplete, and without closure. By looking back at WWI, we can better understand how sudden endings affect us and how to move forward without resolution. Read more, and find out why sudden departures, like those that happened to some World War I soldiers, caused long-term emotional strain, and can still do so a century later.

Travis Davis says his new novel, One of Four: World War One Through the Eyes of an Unknown Soldier, is “not a war book, it’s a book about war and the ramifications war has on soldiers, their families, and non-combatants living in a country ravaged by war. Most of all, it’s a tribute to the unknown soldier and all the ‘Doughboys’ that fought, the ones that came home, and the ones that gave it all.” A former soldier himself, Davis tells how the idea for the book originated in 1977 when he was a member of the burial detail to honor a former World War I soldier. Learn more about how the idea germinated and flowered over the years as he “would become fixated on the war and the unknown soldier from World War I.”

Maine has no shortage of celebrated war heroes. This week, two Passamaquoddy soldiers are being permanently honored for their bravery in World War I. “We get to go to the site and see it whenever we want,” Pearl Pulk, a Perry resident, said. More than a century after his heroic acts, Pulk’s grandfather, Samuel J. Dana, is being recognized. The site is formerly known as the Woodville Training Area and is now named the PFC Charles Lola and PFC Samuel J. Dana Training Area. It was named after Pulk’s grandfather and Lola, another Passamaquoddy World War I veteran. Find out how Dana and Lola remained at their post in France In 1918 during a fierce German attack, despite orders to fall back, and turned the tide of battle, an act of heroism ultimately led to a victory.

Spend more than five minutes in Montana and you’ll pick up on something really fast: Montanans love freedom and although they might not always agree with everything going on, they love their country. Montana is known for being fiercely independent, deeply patriotic, and proud of their heritage. That’s why it’s so hard to believe that at one point in the state’s history, Montana made it illegal to speak out against the government. Sounds impossible, right? Unfortunately, it’s true, and the consequences were heartbreaking. Learn how, in 1918, the Montana Legislature passed the Montana Sedition Law, and just saying something against the war, even in a private conversation, could land a person in jail and sadly, many were imprisoned.

Author and historian Chris Gibbons used the occasion of Memorial Day 2025 to take a look back at “Philadelphia’s Own” – the World War I 315th Infantry Regiment. Assigned to the 79th Division, the regiment was made up exclusively of men from the City of Brotherly Love. “On September 21, 1917, a little over five months after the U.S. formally entered World War I, the first 361 recruits for the 315th Infantry Regiment arrived at Camp Meade in Maryland. The official record of the regiment during the Great War, authored by several officers of the 315th, noted that patriotic enthusiasm among these early Philadelphia recruits was so high that thorough physical examinations conducted at Camp Meade revealed that one recruit “was found to possess a wooden leg and another a glass eye.”  Read more about the men of the 315th Infantry Regiment, “Philadelphia’s Own”, who served, many giving their lives, to help bring an end to World War I.

Weapons systems are about lethality—as long as they are useful and effective at killing enemies, they never truly become obsolete. The US Army, for instance, disbanded horseback cavalry in the 1940s, only to deploy special forces on horseback to fight in Afghanistan. From mines to bayonets and artillery, weapons borne by Doughboys in the trenches in World War I are carried and employed by Ukrainian soldiers today defending their country—from trenches. Weapons, unlike fashion, don’t go out of style on a whim. Learn how, historically, why armor has succeeded or failed in combat today appears little different from when it was first introduced on the battlefield during World War I. 

In the lead-up to the U.S. entry into World War I, few pieces of legislation were as sweeping as the Naval Act of 1916. Officially titled An Act Making Appropriations for the Naval Service, it aimed to prepare the U.S. Navy for potential involvement in global conflict by expanding its fleet, modernizing armaments, and increasing personnel. But a loophole in the law’s language made it possible for then-Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels to make a quiet, game-changing decision. Find out how one word that wasn’t there enabled, the first time in American history, women to formally enlist in the U.S. Military, as not just nurses or auxiliaries, but as full-fledged reservists.

World War I earned the grim title of “the War to end all wars” for a reason: the world had never before witnessed a conflict on such an unimaginable scale. The sheer scale of the conflict felt unreal and completely unprecedented. Not only did it involve numerous nations across the globe, but it also introduced terrifying new technologies. Weapons like gas, tanks, and machine guns, alongside the brutal reality of trench warfare, inflicted catastrophic damage at an alarming level. Around 65 million soldiers fought in World War I, and over 16 million animals served served in various roles during the conflict. Read more about how these animals played crucial roles, detecting gas, controlling pests in the trenches, transporting vital supplies, and carrying messages and communications along the front lines; many of them undeniably changed the entire course of the war.

To celebrate the Army’s 250th birthday this year, Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG) is looking back at how the organization has played a major role in shaping Army technology since its establishment in 1917. APG is the Army’s oldest active proving ground and, despite its age, is known as “the home of innovation.” APG plays a vital role in Army modernization efforts by developing cutting-edge technologies to support the warfighter. With APG’s extensive efforts, America’s service members are ready, modern, and prepared to defeat and destroy those who threaten our homeland, our partners and allies, and our American way of life. Learn about APG’s World War I origins, and why it was such a unique organization, testing wheeled vehicles, tanks, airplanes, and lethal gasses.

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Our Doughboy MIA this month is Private Frank Joseph Brown, born on July 6, 1891, in Chicago, Illinois. Before the war, he had a successful career in the entertainment industry as a pianist, performing in clubs across the city. He was drafted into the United States Army on September 17, 1917, and initially assigned to the 311th Engineers.

He was later transferred to the 128th Infantry Regiment of the 32nd Division. In February 1918, he sailed to France, where he was reassigned to the Machine Gun Company of the 28th Infantry, 1st Division.

On July 19, 1918, Pvt. Brown was hauling a machine gun cart with mules when he was struck by an enemy shell. Sgt. Ray Smith, of the same company, witnessed the blast and later recalled Brown’s final moments to investigators.

Read Pvt. Brown’s whole story here.

Would you like to be involved with solving the case of PVT Frank Joseph Brown, and all the other Americans still in MIA status from World War I? You can! Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to our non-profit organization today, and help us bring them home! Help us do the best job possible and give today, with our thanks.  Remember: A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

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