Advent Day 19 - The Lost Battalion

Thomas S. Monson, “Lost Battalions,” Ensign, Apr 1987, 3

Some time ago I stood on an old bridge which spans the River Somme as it makes its steady but unhurried way through the heartland of France. Suddenly, I realized more than fifty years had come—then gone—since the signing of the Armistice of 1918 and the termination of the Great War.
I tried to imagine what the River Somme had looked like more than half a century before. How many thousands of soldiers had crossed this same bridge? Some came back. For others, the Somme was truly a river of no return. The battlefields of Vimy Ridge, Armentieres, and Nueve Chappelle took an enormous toll in human life. Acres of neat, white crosses serve as an unforgettable reminder.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly, Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders fields. (John McCrae, “In Flanders Fields.”)
As a boy, I enjoyed reading the account of the “lost battalion.” The “lost battalion” was a unit of the U.S. Army 77th Infantry Division in World War I. During the Meuse-Argonne offensive, a major led this battalion through a gap in the enemy lines, but troops on the flanks were unable to advance. An entire battalion was surrounded. Food and water were short; casualties could not be evacuated. Hurled back by the battalion were repeated attacks. Ignored were notes from the enemy requesting the battalion to surrender. Newspapers heralded the battalion’s tenacity. Men of vision pondered its fate. Then, after a brief but desperate period of total isolation, other units of the 77th Division advanced and relieved the “lost battalion.”
Correspondents noted in their dispatches that the relieving forces seemed bent on a crusade of love to rescue their comrades in arms. Men volunteered more readily, fought more gallantly, and died more bravely.
As I thought of these events, I found myself saying softly, How strange that war brings forth the savagery of conflict, yet inspires brave deeds of courage—some prompted by love. A tribute to those courageous deeds echoed in my mind from that ageless sermon preached on the Mount of Olives: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13.)
Almost forgotten is the story of the “lost battalion” and the terrible price paid for its rescue. Yet the story has much to teach us. Are there “lost battalions” even today? If so, what is our responsibility to rescue them? Their members may not wear clothes of khaki brown or march to the sound of drums. But they share with the lost battalion of the Argonne the same doubt, feel the same despair, and know the same disillusionment that isolation brings.
There are the “lost battalions” of the handicapped—the lame, the speechless, and the sightless. Have you experienced the frustration of wanting but not knowing how to help the individual who walks stiffly behind his seeing-eye canine companion or moves with measured step to the tap, tap, tap of a white cane? There are many who are lost in this trackless desert of darkness.
If you desire to see the rescue operation for members in this “lost battalion,” visit your city’s center for the blind and witness the selfless service of those who read to those who can’t. Observe the skills taught the handicapped. Be inspired by the efforts put forth to enable them to secure meaningful employment. Those who labor so willingly and give so generously to those who have lost so tragically find ample reward in the light which they bring into the lives of the sightless.
Do we appreciate the joy of a blind person as his nimble fingers pass quickly over the pages of the Braille edition of the New Testament? He pauses at the twelfth chapter of John and contemplates the depth of meaning in the promise of the Prince of Peace: “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” (John 12:46.)
Consider the “lost battalions” of the aged, the widowed, the sick. All too often they are found in that parched and desolate wilderness called loneliness. When youth departs, when health declines, when vigor wanes, when the light of hope flickers ever so dimly, members of these vast “lost battalions” can be succored and sustained by the hand that helps and the heart that knows compassion.

“Somebody’s Mother” by Mary Dow Brine:
The woman was old and ragged and gray And bent with the chill of the Winter’s day. The street was wet with a recent snow,And the woman’s feet were aged and slow.She stood at the crossing and waited long,Alone, uncared for, amid the throngOf human beings who passed her byNor heeded the glance of her anxious eye.Down the street, with laughter and shout,Glad in the freedom of “school let out,”Came the boys like a flock of sheep,Hailing the snow piled white and deep. … [One] paused beside her and whispered low,“I’ll help you cross, if you wish to go. … She’s somebody’s mother, boys, you know,For all she’s aged and poor and slow.And I hope some fellow will lend a handTo help my mother, you understand,If ever she’s poor and old and gray,When her own dear boy is far away.”And “somebody’s mother” bowed low her headIn her home that night, and the prayer she saidWas, “God be kind to the noble boy,Who is somebody’s son, and pride and joy!”

He who rescued the “lost battalion” of mankind is the literal Savior of the world. He is the Son of God, the Prince of Peace, the Holy One of Israel, even the risen Lord, who declared, “I am the first and the last; I am he who liveth, I am he who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father.” (D&C 110:4.)
As his witness I testify that he lives and that his teachings and his gospel have the power to rescue each of us as we turn to him in faith and integrity.