Story by George Edmonston Jr.

 

Post 57 is named for Lester C. Rees. But who was he?

 

Rees lost his life during World War I. He was killed on Oct. 12, 1918. The place was Gesnes, France.

 

Sadly, this was a mere 29 days short of Nov. 11, 1918, the day the war ended.

 

Now, Lester Rees sleeps the eternal sleep at plot A, row 8, grave 19 at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery just outside the French village of Romagne, which is quietly tucked away in the region of Lorraine in the northern part of the country.

 

Gesnes is close by, still a deeply wooded area littered with decaying bunkers and trench lines reminding us this was once the front line of the American army.

 

Rees (whose name on his cemetery cross is spelled Reese) shares this lovely spot with 14,246 other American soldiers and sailors. The grounds total 130.5 acres, the largest concentration of American military dead in Europe.

Most of them were lost to us during the Meuse-Argonne Offensive, also known as the Battle of the Argonne Forest. It was fought across the expanse of Lorraine’s thick wooded areas and rolling hills from Sept. 26 to Nov. 11, 1918.

This was where Medal of Honor recipient Alvin York made his mark. The same is true of the Lost Battalion. Meuse-Argonne is often called the “bloodiest single battle in American military history.”

 

Rees’s cross also indicates he was a mechanic with the army’s 125th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Infantry Division. Many of the men who served with him were from Michigan, and everyone saw heavy combat all during the offensive. From Oct. 3-13, covering the young man’s last week with the unit, the 125th suffered 603 wounded and 173 killed.

 

In the Newberg Public Library, the oldest copy in the files of the Newberg High School yearbook, Chehalem, shows his picture. He’s with a group of friends from the sophomore class. His boyish face is full of wonderment and life, oblivious to the fact that in two years he will lie with a fatal wound beneath the trees of Gesnes, 5,190 miles from home.