Welcome to the American Story. Stories about what it is that makes America beautiful and worthy of our love.

On Memorial Day as on all days, we honor and mourn those who have given their lives for our freedom.

To keep the country worthy of their sacrifices is our work. It makes us better to do it and it will

always need doing. This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute,

wishing you and yours a blessed memorial day.

I call this one known but to God.

Here rests in honored glory, an American soldier known but to God.

These words, all in capital letters, are inscribed on the Western facade of the tomb of the

unknown soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. More than 4 million visitors

come to the cemetery every year,

from across America and around the world.

And unless they have their own personal visit to make,

the thing they most want to do

is to climb the hill to the high ground of the Memorial

Amphitheatre and visit the tomb. The American Civil War brought forth

Arlington National Cemetery on land belonging once to George

Washington's family and later to Robert E. Lee's. More Americans died in the Civil

War than in all America's other wars combined.

And the first soldier buried at Arlington was Private William Christman

on May 13, 1864. The Great War, later tragically to become known as World War I, brought forth

the tomb of the unknown soldier. The American Expeditionary force that fought in the Great War in

1917 and 1918 lost more than 116,000 troops. Identification tags were a relatively recent introduction of

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