A tribute to the Gopher Gunners and all others who made the ultimate sacrifice

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For a few months now, drivers crossing the Hwy. 55 bridge over the Minnesota River have passed signs informing them that they are traversing the Gopher Gunners Memorial Bridge. The bridge was dedicated under that name in 1926, and the new signage was added this year by action of the state Legislature. The number of drivers who have wondered who or what the Gopher Gunners were is anybody’s guess.

This Memorial Day is an appropriate time to do more than wonder. The Gopher Gunners were National Guard troops from Minnesota who went to Europe to fight in World War I, known at the time as the Great War and fancifully, hopefully, described as the “War to End All Wars.”

The 151st Artillery, aka the Gopher Gunners, arrived in France on Oct. 31, 1917. The regiment lost its first soldier killed in action on March 5, 1918. By the time the war ended on Nov. 11 that year, the Gopher Gunners had suffered 489 casualties — about 20% of their original strength — killed, wounded, gassed or dead from disease. “For the last four months it had been in almost continuous action,” reads a battalion history.

It’s too easy to forget the human cost of our country’s wars. Time and distance conspire with the comforting fog of fading memory. Surviving veterans of these wars know how perishable is the public’s appreciation of the sacrifices they made, and the greater sacrifice they nearly made, and the ultimate sacrifice that others made.

The senior citizen who drives a car with Vietnam veteran license plates is testifying that here, at least, is one person who remembers and honors that war and its 58,000 American dead, a number that includes more than a thousand Minnesotans. Vietnam feels like recent history to those who were alive at the time, but they are part of a shrinking minority; more than half of Minnesotans now living were not yet born when the Vietnam War ended.

If those recent wars have become a blur for some people, maybe it’s because they have names that are, sadly, unmemorable. The Pentagon and the White House now christen wars with what amount to brand names: Operations Enduring Freedom, Infinite Justice, New Dawn, Iraqi Freedom. Military actions have long carried code names like Overlord, Arc Light or Market Garden for security purposes; euphemistic names like Infinite Justice serve not security but public-relations purposes, which is a nice way of calling them propaganda.

To clarify, Operation Enduring Freedom was the war in Afghanistan, which saw more than 1,900 Americans killed in action. Iraqi Freedom and New Dawn were the names given to the most recent war in Iraq, with more than 3,400 Americans killed. The earlier war in Iraq, referred to as Desert Storm or the Persian Gulf War, saw about 140 American combat deaths. However large or small the number, each of those deaths represents the same sacrifice — everything that soldier had.

All told, something like 14,500 Minnesota soldiers have given their lives in the nation’s wars. What they and their families sacrificed in service to their country should be honored for what it was, not glossed over by euphemism or allowed to fade from memory. Today is a day to honor the memory of the Gopher Gunners and the men and women who came before and after them. They deserve our respect and thanks.