Never Forget Cockade

1 week ago

Never Forget Cockade

Robert Loftur-Thun, SHGTUS and American Legion Paris Post Member

Presented at Foch & Pershing Celebration

On the evening of February 3, 2025, there was the Foch & Pershing Celebration at the Residence of the French Ambassador Laurent Bili in Washington, D.C., in the presence of the Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Schill, celebrating 250 years of the French - American military relationship. The descendants of Marshall Foch, Thierry Fournier-Foch, and Nadine Ermeneux, were also in attendance at the Celebration.

The event also highlighted the publishing of the book Foch & Pershing Two Men, One Cause, Three Centuries, commissioned for the Celebration. The book was an initiative by Colonel Thomas Labouche, French Army Liaison to the US Department of the Army, with the creative lead of Mr. Yorick de Guichen, a member of the French chapter of the historic The Society of the Cincinnati, descendants of American and French Army officers that fought in the American Revolution.

The book is dedicated by His Excellence Laurent Bili, Ambassador of France, François Lecointre, General Chancellor of the Legion of Honor – Chancellor of the National Order of Merit, and General of the Army, and forwards by General Pierre Schill, Chief of Staff of the French Army,

General Randy A. George, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and General Eric M. Smith, Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corp.

The 250+ page book in French and English is beautifully conceived and designed, and includes contributions from current military historians, with exceptional photos. It provides a very comprehensive and personal exploration of the 250-year French - American military alliance, with book segments. From History to Live – From History to Personal Relationships. Viewed By – perspectives by current military historians on the people and relationships. In The Heat of Combat, covering the unprecedented scale of carnage of World War I. In The News, documenting reporting from the front and public campaigns in France and the United States. In Memoriam, paying tribute to the ultimate sacrifice of all soldiers, represented by Unknown Soldiers. In Memoriam starts with the story of the grave of 50 Unknown French Soldiers who died in the Battle of Yorktown in 1781.

It then traces the establishment of the Tomb of the French Unknown Soldier in Paris, the influence of the French and British Tombs of the Unknown Soldiers on the US Congressional authorization in March 2021 for an American Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The segment also describes the reverential selection on October 24, 2021, of the American Unknown Soldier by decorated WWI combat veteran Sergeant Younger in Châlons-sur-Marne France, which is now Châlons-en-Champagne, and the internment of the American Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 1921.

Another very important component of the Foch-Pershing Celebration was the commissioning of a sculpture of Marshall Foch and General Pershing by Mr. Luc de Moustier, engineer, inventor, artist, painter and sculptor. Mr. de Moustier’s ancestor, Eleonore François Elie de Moustier, was France’s minister plenipotentiary to the United States in 1787, and his grandfather, Jacques Lemaigre Dubreuil, played a decisive role in Operation Torch in WWII, opening a new front in North Africa.

Mr. de Moustier chose as a model the photograph of Foch & Pershing taken on September 1919 in Brest Harbor. He said, “What really stood out was the close, almost intimate relationship between the two men. The energy that passes through them, the relationship of trust between two figures who made History in their own time. That look, its intensity and its universal value, was shared by the sailors who witnessed the moment on the deck of the Leviathan.”

There were two statuettes sculpted, one unique statuette blended with sand from Omaha Beach and soil from Yorktown to be presented to the United States Army, in its home in the Pentagon, and a unique statuette blended with sand from Belleau Wood and soil from Yorktown to be presented to the United States Marine Corps in its home in the United States Marine Corps Museum.

The Foch & Pershing Celebration event featured speeches by the recipients of The Society of the Honor Guard Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (SHGTUS) Never Forget Cockade.

The wearing of a signature cockade was first documented in 1709. In the 18th and 19th centuries, cockades were worn in Europe to show allegiance to a nation or an army, and as an effective means of identification of rank and group. The cockade came to America during the American Revolution, when General George Washington created the “Alliance Cockade” a layered cockade displaying both the black cockade of the Continental Army and the white cockade of the French Army. SHGTUS and The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Foundation reintroduced the Alliance Cockade at a celebration of the Battle of Yorktown and at a rededication ceremony at the grave in Arlington National Cemetery of French Major Pierre L’Enfant and planner of the city of Washington, D.C.

A cockade is a knot of ribbons, artfully crafted to be worn on a hat (originally) or a lapel (today). They are designed in the symbolic and meaningful colors of the wearer. It was immediately determined that the SHGTUS Never Forget cockade must be white in reverence to the spray of white roses that designated the unidentified fallen soldier who would be America’s Unknown Soldier of World War I. That spray of white roses accompanied our soldier from the town hall in Châlons-en-Champagne where the selection ceremony took place, by train to the port of Le Havre, aboard the USS Olympia across the storm-ridden Atlantic Ocean, to lay in state in the Rotunda of the US Capitol, and to his final resting place at Arlington National Cemetery on November 11, 2021. Never Forget white rose gardens were established by SHGTUS in 2018, and flourish today in the United States and France.

The Never Forget Cockade, designed by Marilyn Wellan and crafted by Heather Sheen of Creative Cockades, is three inches in diameter. The center of the cockade carries a reverential image of a white rose bloom, surrounded by thin lines of the colors of the American flag, red, white and blue. The immortal words Never Forget are inscribed across the face of the rose. The central message is circled by a lovely white filigree embellishment; and finally, the white ribbon of the cockade represents the white petals of the symbol of the Never Forget Project, the white rose.

The decorous white cockade whispers the words we forever hold in our hearts, “We will Never Forget”.

The SHGTUS Never Forget Cockade was presented at the Foch & Pershing Celebration to four French citizens who, in their respective esteemed roles, are contributing in very important ways in continuing the close and mutually respected 250-year military relationship of the United States and France:

His Excellence Laurent Bili, Ambassador of France, General Pierre Schill, Chief of Staff of the French Army,

Colonel Thomas Labouche, French Army Liaison to the US Department of the Army, Mr. Luc de Moustier, Sculptor of the Foch & Pershing statuettes.

Society of The Honor Guard Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (SHGTUS) member (Tomb Guard Badge 191) and American Legion Paris Post 1 member Robert Loftur-Thun provided historical background to the esteemed recipients regarding the genesis of the American Legion in Paris in 1919, the inspiration of US Congressman Hamilton Fish, a WWI veteran, from the French and British Tombs of the Unknown Soldier leading to the Congressional authorization of the American Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1921 and the selection of the American WWI Unknown in Châlons-en- Champagne on October 24, 1921 by decorated WWI combat veteran Sergeant Younger.

Mr. Loftur-Thun told the esteemed recipients of the pilgrimage that took place exactly one hundred years later on October 24, 2021, to Châlons-en-Champagne, in collaboration with American Legion Paris Post 1, active and former SHGTUS Tomb Guards, American Gold Star Mothers, and Daughters of the American Revolution. He shared with them how the group was touched emotionally by the warm personal reception of the French people in Châlons-en-Champagne. Robert then explained the creation of white rose Never Forget Gardens in the US and France, inspired by the spray of white roses Sergeant Younger laid on the casket of the American WWI Unknown Soldier laying in state in Châlons-en-Champagne, and the subsequent creation of the SHGTUS white rose Never Forget Cockade.

The Foch & Pershing Celebration at the Residence of the French Ambassador Laurent Bili in Washington, D.C., in the presence of Chief of Staff of the French Army, General Schill, was a resounding success in celebrating 250 years of the French - American military relationship, as well as the personal bond between the French and American people.

Foch & Pershing Celebration Partners: