Welcome to the American Story. Mostly true stories about what it is that makes America beautiful.

Heartbreaking, funny, inspiring, and endlessly interesting.

This is Chris Flannery with the Claremont Institute.

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 tune. The American Civil War

brought forth Arlington National Cemetery on land belonging

once to George Washington's family and later to Robert E. Lees.

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 modern warfare,

but still almost 2,000 American troops remained unidentified. One of those unidentified

troops was selected for burial at Arlington with solemn ceremony. Three years

...