Their deaths in foreign French fields scattered from Verdun to Ypres remind us that we are ultimately responsible to a higher calling than just formals and final papers.

As we approach the end of the "Great American Century," it is inevitable that memories will fade and familial links will pass from this earth. In times of a calm global political environment, complacency will be accepted and isolationism will be embraced even as defense budgets remain cushy.

However, it is foolish to believe that war has been completely transformed from the bloody battles of the trenches to surgical smart-bombs and Tomahawk missiles.

We might be fortunate enough to live in a relatively peaceful world, but sometime deep in the next century or maybe sooner, Harvard students will be called upon once again to serve their country. One only needs to read one of the other inscriptions on Anderson Bridge to recall that peace is never easily won and must always be treasured: "On either side of the river there was a tree of life which bore twelve manner of fruits and yielded her fruit every month, and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations."

The bridge, along with the inscription, was built in 1913, a few scant months before an assassination of a dignitary in a foreign land would call Harvard students from their books to battle in the Great War.

M. Douglas O'Malley '01 is a history concentrator in Eliot House. He is a Crimson editor.