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63 7 troubled Waters immigrant soldiers played a key role in the American military force that went to war in 1917, especially since no legal provision forbade the voluntary enlistment of registered aliens from enemy nations. tens of thousands of the citizens and subjects of other countries joined up, an appreciable fraction of them natives of Germany and Austria.1 Foreign-born troops, eager to express their loyalty and make their ethnicity acceptable to the United states, readily offered their service to the nation, but their willingness to sacrifice was not without auxiliary aspirations. Many nationalities utilized the popular patriotic rhetoric and imagery employed by both reigning nativists and the government propaganda machine to “achieve their own international goals and express ethnic pride,” as Nancy Gentile Ford has written. even before the nation entered war in April 1917, “German and irish immigrants attempted to pressure the government to keep America out of the conflict and actively promoted a course of strict neutrality.” Their intentions were matched by other immigrants who staunchly advocated a prowar position. eventual U.s. entry into war, for example, “provided American Czech, slovak, Polish, and Jewish immigrants an opportunity to fight for the independence of their homeland from the bondage of the German, Austro-Hungarian, and turkish empires ,” Ford explains.2 in this war of global participation, America’s multiethnic fighting force contributed enormously to its military strength, but it also complicated an already complex repatriation process of the war dead. Many next of kin to the deceased lived in foreign countries and, accordingly, requested that loved ones be buried in their native homeland. Their desires did not go unnoticed by the deceased’s adopted country. on January 1, 1920, in an attempt to honor the contributions of all Americans, the War Department decided to deliver, upon request of the families, the bodies of American servicemen buried overseas to their homes, wherever they may be.3 replies were received from some of the most remote parts of europe in 64 Troubled Waters response to letters sent out from the Paris Grs headquarters. They usually conveyed the same desire as that expressed by thousands of Americans living in the United states, that is, to have the body returned “home.” Doing so required an elaborate series of formal negotiations with a substantial assortment of foreign governments, a process that continued well into August 1920. The italian government proved the most complex of all negotiating countries since there were more italians than any other nationality who desired foreign burial, followed by those originating from ireland.4 interestingly, the same indecision that afflicted families in the United states over the disposition question often found its way into the hearts of foreigners trying to choose between personal desires and conflicting national loyalties. When Private Pietro dePalma of the 311th infantry regiment was killed in the Argonne Forest just weeks before the armistice, his mother, an illiterate woman living in italy who spoke no english, was adamant that her son should rest in America’s national cemetery at Arlington, virginia. DePalma’s brother, on the other hand, wanted the body brought home to New Jersey.5 When the coffin arrived in Brooklyn, the family was still undecided . Finally, in February 1922, Mrs. dePalma acquiesced to her eldest son’s wishes and relinquished her right, as assigned by the War Department , to decide Pietro’s final resting place. it seems family pressures and obligations trumped national ones. The extent of the government’s efforts to accommodate Nok requests is surely without precedent, particularly in italy, where many of the bodies had to be transported long distances into the mountains after they reached the last railroad point to which they could be carried. some were then sent further on, as far as ninety kilometers. one body was even delivered to a small island about fifty miles from Naples aboard an italian naval vessel.6 The Grs history claimed that 454 bodies were ultimately shipped to foreign countries for burial by 1922.7 Not all requests were so readily honored, however. in July 1918, Wasil kovaswick, a private with the 32nd Division, died while serving in France. His only surviving relative, a sister in russia, wrote to the Grs requesting that her brother’s body be brought there for burial. The Paris Grs never responded to her wishes but notified the newly formed branch office in Washington, DC, that “correspondence is not undertaken with relatives residing in russia, and consequently, this case will be considered...

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