Who Is Government?: The Untold Story of Public Service

by Michael Lewis

The largest repatriation effort came after World War II, when President Harry S. Truman promised next of kin that they would get to decide where their loved ones would be buried, no matter how difficult it was to identify them, no matter how far from home they died. Well more than half the men who perished fighting alongside Staff Sergeant Ferris—more than 170,000 veterans—were returned to the United States for interment after the armistice. The effort to bring the others home has never ended. It is sometimes difficult to know what makes a nation distinctive, to recognize which among our traditions and habits are essential to our collective identity. But repatriating the war dead is the deepest expression of the commitment we make to those who serve this country, an act of loyalty and gratitude that endures beyond the grave. By reuniting fallen warriors with their families and communities, we also bind their memory to our national identity, following rituals that turn each individual loss into something like the legend on a map, showing us the true scale of something we might otherwise never see.