Jean Paul Sartre once called John Dos Passos one of the most significant wirters of the 20th century. The followoing selection, written in Dos Passos’ "roving camera" style combining prose, poetry and other modes, depicts the choosing of the body for the tomb of the unknown soldier.

"The Body of an American," by John Dos Passos (an abridged version)

    Whereasthe Congressof the united states byaconcurrentresolution-adoptedon the4thdayofmarch lastauthorizedthe Secretaryofwar to cause to be brought to theunitedstatesthe body of an Americanwhowasamemberoftheamerican expeditionaryforceineuropewholosthislifeduringtheworldwarandwhoseidentity hasnotbeenestablished for burial inthememorialamphitheatreofthenational cemeteryatarlingtonvirginia.

    In the tarpaper morgue at Châlons-sur-Marne in the reek of chloride of lime and the dead, they picked out the pine box that held all that was left of

    enie menie minie moe plenty other pine boxes stacked up there containing what they'd scraped up of Richard Roe

    and other person or person unknown. Only one can go. How did they pick John Doe?

    Make sure he ain't a dinge, boys.

    make sure he ain't a guinea or a kike,

    how can you tell a guy's a hunredpercent when all you've got's a gunnysack full of bones, bronze buttons stamped with the screaming eagle and a pair of roll puttees?

    . . . and the gagging chloride and the puky dirtstench of the yearold dead...

    The day withal was too meaningful and tragic for applause. Silence, tears, songs and prayer, muffled drums and soft music were the instrumentalities today of national approbation.

    John Doe was born (thudding din of blood in love into the shuddering soar of a man and a woman alone indeed together lurching into

    and ninemonths sick drowse waking into scared agony and the pain and blood and mess of birth). John doe was born

    and raised in Brooklyn, in Memphis, near the lakefront in Cleveland, Ohio, in the stench of the stockyards in Chi, on Beacon Hill, in an old brick house in Alexandria, Virginia, on Telegraph Hill, in a halftimbered Tudor cottage in Portland, the city of roses,

    in the Lying-In Hospital old Morgan endowed on Stuyvesant Square,

    across the railroad tracks, out near the country club, in a shack cabin tenement apartmenthouse exclusive residential suburb;

    scion of one of the best families in the social register, won first prize in the baby parade at Coronado Beach, was marbles champion of the Little Rock grammarschools, crack basketballplayer at the Booneville High, quarterback at the State Reformatory, having saved the sheriff's kid from drowning in the Little Missouri River was invited to Washington to be photographed shaking hands with the President on the White House steps;--

        though this was a time of mourning, such an assemblage necessarily has about it a touch of color. In the boxes are seen the court uniforms of foreign diplomats, the gold braid of our own and foreign fleets and armies, the black of the conventional morning dress of American statesmen, the varicolored furs and outdoor wrapping garments of mothers and sisters come to morn, the drab and blue of soldiers and

    sailors, the glitter of musical instruments and the white and black of a vested choir.

    --busboy harveststiff hogcaller boyscout champeen cornshucker of Western Kansas bellhop at the United States Hotel at Saratoga Springs officeboy callboy fruiter telephonelineman longshoreman lumberjack plumber's helper,

    worked for an exterminating company in Union City, filled pipes in an opium joint in Trenton, New Jersey.

    Y.M.C.A. secretary, express agent, truckdriver, fordmechanic, sold books in Denver, Colorado: Madam would you be willing to help a young man work his way through college?

            President Harding, with a reverence seemingly more significant because of his high             temporal station, concluded his speech:

            We are met today to pay the impersonal tribute;

the name of him whose body lies before us took flight with his

imperishable soul...

        as a typical soldier of this representative democracy he fought

and died believing in the indisputable justice of his country's cause...

        by raising his right hand and asking the thousands within the sound

of his voice to join in the prayer:

            Our Father which are in heaven hallowed by thy name...

    Naked he went into the army;

they weighed you, measured you, looked for flat feet, squeezed your penis to see if you had clap, looked up your anus to see if you had piles, counted your teeth, made you cough, listened to your heart and lungs, made you read the letters on the card, charted your urine and your intelligence,

    gave you a service record for a future (imperishable soul)

    and an identification tag stamped with your serial number to hand around your neck, issued O.D. regulation equipment, a condiment can and a copy of the articles of war.

    Atten'SHUN suck in your gut you c___r wipe that smile off your face eyes right wattja tink dis is a choirch-social? For-war-D'ARCH.

    John Doe

    and Richard Roe and other person or persons unknown

    drilled, hiked, manual of arms, ate slum, learned to salute, to soldier, to loaf in the latrines, forbidden to smoke on deck, overseas guard duty, forty men and eight horses, shortarm inspection and the ping of shrapnel and the shrill bullets combing the air and the sorehead woodpeckers the machineguns mud cooties gasmasks and the itch.

    Say feller tell me how I can get back to my outfit.

    John Doe had a head

for twentyodd years intensely the nerves of the eyes the ears the palate the tongue the fingers the toes the armpits, the nerves warmfeeling under the skin charged the coiled brain with hurt sweet warm cold mine must don't sayings print headlines:

    Thou shalt not the multiplication table long division, Now is the time for all good men knocks but once at a young man's door, It's a great life if Ish gebibbel, The first five years'll be the Safety First, Suppose a Hun tried to rape your my country right or wrong, Catch 'em young What he don't know won't treat 'em rough, Tell 'em nothin', He got what was coming to him he got his, This is a white man's country, Kick the bucket, Gone west, If you don't like it your can croaked him

    Say buddy can't you tell me how I can get back to my outfit?

    Can't help jumpin' when them things go off, give me the trots them things do. I lost my identification tag swimmin' in the Marne, roughhousin' with a guy while we was waitin' to be deloused, in bed with a girl named Jeanne (Love moving picture wet French postcard dream began with saltpeter in the coffee and ended at the propho station);--

    Say soldier for chrissake can't you tell me how I can get back to my outfit?

     John Doe

    heart pumped blood:

    alive thudding silence of blood in your ears

    down in the clearing in the Oregon forest where the punkins were punkincolor pouring into the blood through the eyes and the fallcolored trees and the bronze hoopers were hopping through the dry grass, where tiny striped snails hung on the underside of the blades while the flies hummed, wasps droned, bumblebees buzzed, and the woods smelt of wine and mushrooms and apples, homey smell of fall pouring into the blood,

    and I dropped the tin hat and the sweaty pack and lay flat with the dogday sun licking my throat and adamsapple and the tight skin over the breastbone.

    The shell had his number on it.

    The blood ran into the ground.

    The service record dropped out of the filing cabinet when the quartermaster sergeant got blotto that time they had to pack up and leave the billets in a hurry.

    The identification tag was in the bottom of the Marne.

    The blood ran into the ground, the brains oozed out of the cracked skull and were licked up by the trenchrats, the belly swelled and raised a generation of bluebottle flies,

    and the incorruptible skeleton,

    and the scraps of dried viscera and skin bundled in khaki

    they took to Châlons-sur-Marne

    and laid it out neat in a pine coffin

    and took it home to God's Country on a battleship

    and buried it in a sarcophagus in the Memorial Amphitheater in the Arlington

National Cemetery

    and draped the Old Glory over it

    and the bugler played taps

    and Mr. Harding prayed to God and the diplomats and the generals and the admirals and the brasshats and the politicians and the handsomely dressed ladies out of the society column of the Washington Post stood up solemn

    and thought how beautiful sad Old Glory God's Country it was to have the bugler play taps and the three volleys made their ears ring.

    Where his chest ought to have been they pinned the Congressional Medal, the D.S.C., the Médaille Millitare, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Italian gold medal, the Vitutea Militara sent by Queen Marie of Rumania, the Czechoslovak War Cross, the Virtuti Millitari of the Poles, a wreath sent by Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, and a little wampum presented by a deputation of Arizona redskins in warpaint and feathers. All the Washingtonians brought flowers.

    Woodrow Wilson brought a bouquet of poppies.