The Doughboy Foundation 2025 Summer Concert Series kicks off on June 5 with a performance by The United States Army Brass Quintet. Since its inception in 1972, the U.S. Army Brass Quintet has gained a reputation as one of the most highly respected and sought-after groups of its kind. The ensemble has performed before audiences and dignitaries in 48 states and 14 foreign countries. Learn more about the Quintet, and RSVP to attend this concert and the rest of the 2025 concert series at the National World War I Memorial.

The East Coast Branch of the Western Front Association will host its annual Spring Symposium on 7 June at the Maryland Veterans Museum, 11000 Crain Highway, Newburg, MD.  The $25 conference fee will include museum fees, breakfast treats, drinks, lunch, and snacks throughout the day.  Western Front Association members and students have a discounted rate. Find out more about the symposium agenda, and how you can register to attend this event and exchange information and knowledge of the First World War in a friendly and welcoming atmosphere. 

Doughboy Foundation Executive Director Jari Villanueva is a Preakness tradition himself, says Jennifer Kelly, writing for the The Racing Biz website on the occasion of the 150th running of the storied race in Maryland in 2025. “Jari Villanueva is not just any Baltimore boy: he is a renowned bugler who has sounded Taps at thousands of military ceremonies and thrilled racing fans at multiple racetracks since 2018,” says Kelly, noting that Jari’s work “on behalf of the veterans also led him to advocate for those who served in World War I.” Read the entire article, and learn how a call from the Timonium racetrack in MD to play at the state fair led to his chance to play the call to the post at tracks like Laurel, Monmouth Park, Charles Town, Yonkers, Parx, and of course, Pimlico. 

During the latest meeting of the U.S. Access Board, Public and Federal Members, along with staff, attended various sessions throughout the week, several of which focused on veterans organizations and issues affecting veterans with disabilities. On Monday, April 28, participants walked to the World War I Memorial on Pennsylvania Avenue, for a tour of the accessibility features of the memorial, including tactile maps, newly-installed ramps, sloped design elements, and NPS mobile app features among others. Read more about how the accessibility features provide visitors with disabilities the opportunity to experience the full emotional breadth of the memorial.

A World War I encampment will be featured at Manitowoc County Historical Society and Pinecrest Village in Wisconsin from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 31 and June 1. The encampment will feature camps of American, British, German, Russian and Ottoman nations. Attendees can learn about their roles in the Great War. Various activities are also scheduled for the weekend, including camp kitchens on the front, weaponry, the Red Cross and more. Learn about the encampment, which includes a display area focusing on Manitowoc County during World War I. With a population of just 45,000, Manitowoc County sent more than 2,300 sons to serve in WWI. 

On Memorial Day weekend in 2025, we honored American heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice. That includes an act of bravery that took place more than a century ago, and efforts now to make sure a soldier is never forgotten. Once a Marine always a Marine, but never has Lew Breese had a mission last this long. “I’m a United States Marine. We just don’t quit,” he said. Read more, and find out how it’s taken him almost 30 years to get the complete picture of a young Army lieutenant’s sacrifice during World War I, which he believes is worthy of the nation’s highest honor: the Medal of Honor.

Two students at Chapman University in California received attention for their research on interesting aspects of World War I and the United States. Laura Neis (‘25 MA War, Diplomacy and Society) (pictured top left) recently presented her research, “The Value of Holidays in World War I America,” at the Wilkerson College Graduate Student Scholars Symposium. Neis looked at how holidays during WWI “became expressions of patriotism and loyalty to the U.S. government, strengthening morale at home and abroad.”  Amala Rajagopal (‘25 History and Philosophy) (pictured bottom left) participated in the inaugural Wilkinson Interterm Research Experience (WIRE) during Interterm 2025. researching the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), their activities during World War I, and their contribution to the changing “America First” ideology.

On Memorial Day, 1941, Sgt. Alvin York spoke at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. This humble farmer from the backwoods of Tennessee began his military career as a pacifist. While he was serving with the U.S. Army during WW I, a Bible study with his commanding officer persuaded a reluctant York that it was right to help defenseless civilians even if it meant killing their attackers. In 1919 he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor after singlehandedly dispatching more than twenty enemy soldiers and capturing 132 on October 8 of the previous year. As WWII began in Europe in the 1930’s, York remained a pacifist, asserting that America “should fight a defensive war only” and stay out of the new conflict. But learn how, by 1941, York’s position had changed, and the old soldier understood that the fight for freedom was a never-ending responsibility. “By our victory in the last war, we won a lease on liberty, not a deed to it.”

The commander in charge of Army operations in Europe led Memorial Day tributes Sunday at the Somme American Cemetery, where some of the first American troops to die in combat on European soil are buried. Gen. Christopher T. Donahue, commanding general of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, said that although the nearly 1,850 soldiers interred at the site died more than a century ago, their service must never be forgotten. “Honoring their sacrifices reminds us that freedom isn’t free and that the American soldier will go and fight wherever, and whenever, their nation calls,” Donahue said. Read more about the event, and some two dozen others held in Europe over Memorial Day weekend at cemeteries run by the American Battle Monuments Commission, where more than 100,000 Americans who fought in both world wars are buried.

The National WWI Museum and Memorial has undergone some big changes over the last three years. The latest is a one-of-a-kind, immersive exhibit to its already loaded walls. Encounters, the new exhibit, uses storytelling bolstered by state-of-the-art audio and video technology to share first-person narratives from individuals whose lives were deeply impacted by the Great War.  Learn how Allied and Central Power soldiers, a bloodied war-time nurse, dissenters from both sides, factory workers and more, portrayed by actors and actresses in high-tech videos, share their stories that were pulled from diary entries, recordings, and other historical documentation, researched by the museum.

After more than 100 years, we have the first actual image of the wreck of a sunken U.S. Navy submarine from World War I. A recent expedition to survey it and other lost military hardware has captured video and photographs of the USS F-1, lost in 1917 in a collision off of California, killing most of its crew. See how the the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Naval History and Heritage Command have shared the results from a deep-sea dive conducted in February and March of this year, showing that the sub is “completely intact.” 

The Choctaw Nation is placing a spotlight on the tribe’s contribution to one of the most notable wars in American history. Choctaw tribal members gathered in front of the nation’s cultural center on Thursday morning, May 22, as a black cloth was lifted to reveal a new statue commemorating the bravery of their ancestors who stood on the front lines of World War I. Those 19 young men would go on to be known as the Choctaw Code Talkers. Learn more about the artist, the new sculpture, and how In the midst of the battlefield, the Choctaw soldiers used their native language as a powerful tool to relay military orders that could not be decoded by the enemy.

Observing Memorial Day, a Lipstick Alley website contributor takes a look at how, when the U.S. joined the war in 1917, Americans from all walks of life wanted to “do their bit.” This included African American women, who found a variety of ways to support the war effort amid rampant racism and sexism. Regardless of skin color, American women were not given duty in combat roles. But they did serve in other ways. Find out how African American women contributed to the war effort as nurses, administrators, drivers, and even deployed overseas to support the American forces.

“America was completely unprepared for the war.” You’ve probably seen some form of this statement in your readings. The statistics seem to fully support this. But, writing for The Roads to the Great War website, Mike Hanlon asserts that those numbers may be misleading. Learn how a different view suggests that America was no more “completely unprepared” for this rapid mobilization and deployment than that the achievement was simply sleight-of-hand. 

World War I didn’t just redraw maps or shift world powers. It seeped into homes, into kitchens and cellars, and into the backs of closets where rusted cans outlived the presidents who were in office when they were bought. What started in muddy trenches and mustard gas-soaked air eventually crawled into American domestic life with a subtle but lasting effect: a new emergency storage culture. On the home front, people were told to prepare. And then, told again. The government offered pamphlets. Local councils pushed patriotic conservation. Leftover fear didn’t leave when the armistice was signed. Instead, it took root, lining shelves and shaping a new normal for ordinary families who learned to be ready for whatever came next. Read more about how “World War I introduced the idea that safety was temporary. And that what you kept in your basement might matter more than what you wore on your sleeve.”

In 1918, as World War I intensified overseas, the U.S. government embarked on a radical experiment: It quietly became the nation’s largest housing developer, designing and constructing more than 80 new communities across 26 states in just two years. These weren’t hastily erected barracks or rows of identical homes. They were thoughtfully designed neighborhoods, complete with parks, schools, shops and sewer systems. In just two years, this federal initiative provided housing for almost 100,000 people. Many of the homes are still standing today. Find out how this program by a now-shuttered agency offers a revealing lesson on what government-led planning can achieve during a time of national need.

The Star of Camp Greene by Joy Callaway (Harper Muse, May 2025) presents the story of Calla Connolly, a famous singer and actress who entertains United States troops both stateside and at the front during WWI. Callaway drew inspiration for the book’s heroine after reading newspaper archives about Elsie Jan, “a renowned Broadway star who was over on a tour in London and engaged to a British stage actor when the war broke out. Her fiancé was quickly called to war and perished.” Read more about how, though Callaway’s main character “is different from Elsie in many ways, the two women share the same backstory,” and learn about the eerie echoes of WWI that still can be heard 100 years later.

The Library of Congress Music Division’s newest research guide, James Reese Europe: A Guide to Resources at the Library of Congress, provides a gateway to accessing historic sheet music, unique literary manuscripts, newspaper archives, recordings, photographs and scholarly research by and related to leading cultural figure James Reese Europe (1881-1919). A renowned musician, composer, arranger, music director and union organizer, Europe’s legacy extends far beyond his musical triumphs on the Broadway stage, in Carnegie Hall, or in wartime France. He was dedicated to showcasing the outstanding contributions of Black Americans in myriad ways. Learn more about how Europe built one of the most notable bands in the history of the United States Army: the WWI 369^th Infantry Regimental Band (“Harlem Hellfighters”).

A man is only missing if he is forgotten.

Our Doughboy MIA this month is Harvey Lawrence Cory , born on October 16, 1896, in Rochester, New York. During his youth, he attended preparatory school in Ridgewood, New Jersey. He later enrolled at Princeton University, where he was a member of the Class of 1917. In April of that year, he attended Officer’s Training School in Plattsburg, New York, where he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant. He was sent to Camp Dix, New Jersey, and assigned to the Machine Gun Company of the 310th Infantry, 78th Division. On May 19, 1918, he sailed for Southampton, England, aboard the SS Beltana. After five days in Southampton, the regiment continued to France, arriving in Calais on June 9, 1918. The regiment then spent two and a half months training with the British Army.

On September 12, the regiment arrived in Bois de Granay, where they were held in reserve for the St. Mihiel Offensive. On the night of September 15, they began to relieve the battered 6th Marines on the Northern edge of Bois de la Montagne, South of Charey.

Preparations began on the afternoon of September 21 for a raid on Mon Plaisir Farm. At 1:00 a.m. the following day, the 3rd Battalion was to conduct the raid under the cover of a box barrage. The objective was to establish a line 100 meters north of the farm, allowing engineers to destroy German dugouts and fighting positions.

Read Lt. Cory’s whole story here.

Would you like to be involved with solving the case of PVT James Argiroplos, 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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