Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Clinton, Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region, Connecticut
Marker Inscription
KNOWN BUT TO GOD THEY FELL IN HONORED GLORY
The Story
The words carved here echo the most solemn line in American commemoration — the inscription of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington, dedicated in 1921 to a nameless serviceman brought home from the battlefields of the First World War. The phrase 'known but to God,' borrowed from Rudyard Kipling's epitaph for the unidentified war dead, gave a nation a way to grieve the countless soldiers who fell without their names ever being recovered. Across the country, towns raised their own memorials in that same spirit, turning a distant tomb in Virginia into a place of remembrance on the village green. This monument in Clinton stands in that tradition, honoring the anonymous dead who gave everything and asked for no recognition in return.
Why it matters
It embodies a distinctly American act of collective memory — the decision to honor not a famous general but the unnamed soldier, insisting that every life given in the nation's service matters even when the name is lost.
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Related events
- · Dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Arlington National Cemetery (1921)
Themes & tags
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