THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER

The Unknown Soldier is an agent with US Army Intelligence.

In the impressive number of adventures graphically detailed for us, he is very often referred to as "the man nobody knows but who is known by everyone" and we are shown many times a man whose head is wrapped in bandages due to horrific injury to his face, only to watch him prepare masks to don to appear normal or to assume a spot-on disguise of someone he had to impersonate. After a short time we will learn of his origin, though not that much about his history, and we will learn why he is determined his true identify will remain a mystery.

Our first introduction, if you can call it that, comes in a story in the Sgt. Rock of Easy Company series of WWII adventures in which he describes how he and his men were facing certain death when an unknown soldier appeared to save their bacon not one or twice but three different time. In each instance, Rock clearly saw it was an American solder like him but no one in Easy Co. ever saw his face. In the third rescue, the man was killed in an explosion and not enough survived to identify him, leaving the authorities to decide he would be the one representing WWII entombed in the monument at Arlington. It is important to point out that nowhere is this mysterious man specifically referred to as the Unknown Soldier.

When we first start being told heroic was stories specifically designated Unknown Soldier tales, we are allowed to meet a man of mystery living "on a small secluded estate just outside of Washington, DC", attended to by a black US Army sergeant. This mystery man, whom we always see in shadow, receives orders from the Pentagon for a new mission and immediately sets to putting on an elaborate facial disguise to look totally different that whatever he looked before. He is given the temporary identity of a Capt. Shales for the mission in the South Pacific. After that harrowing experience is over and he returns to his home in the States, we find him standing in the shadows visiting the Tomb  where he says aloud, "I dedicate myself ... as you have given of yourself ... to uphold the right against any who would attempt to destroy that which we all hold dear..." With that we have no doubt this man is indeed the Unknown Soldier mentioned at the start of this explanation.

The second adventure begins similarly with the sergeant bringing this man in the shadows instruction for another mission, this time in Europe where we will watch an Army squadron get captured by German SS soldiers and sentenced to death immediately (forget the Geneva Convention here) but things change drastically when an emaciated Jewish escapee from a concentration camp arrives and encourages the men to break free. While those American GIs think the escapee killed in the fray, we find the Unknown Soldier back in the States holding a shred of that person's clothing, letting us know he had impersonated the man.

I mention those two adventure in particular because the third tale specifically designated as about the Unknown Soldier has us facing a bit of what I consider misdirection. In a tale told years before the others, a mysterious American soldier named Eddie Ray - at least according to the uniform he was wearing at the time - is presented as someone a new recruit should follow and emulate. Ray's face is never seen and in the end of the story, we are told he grins and walks away. What does Ray have to do with the Unknown Soldier? Well, this third adventure of the Universal Soldier retells that incident which leads some people to postulate that the Unknown Soldier is Ray even though there is no connection between this Ray and the man in the shadows from the first two stories. Misdirection, I say; an outlier story that does not belong in the canon.

Moving on to the fourth story, we are given the origin of the Unknown Soldier whose adventures we will follow for many years to come. We are taken to a modest kitchen where a gray-haired rotund lady is feeding what we assume to be her two grown but still young sons. The elder, a dark haired handsome man named Harry, talks trouble coming for the country - this is a tad before Pearl Harbor is attacked - and he states he is going to join the Army. The younger fellow, a baby-faced blond-haired man in his late teens, says he will as well and when Harry recommends he stay at home and go to college, the teen refuses. On October 14, 1941, they were both sworn in and after what must have been a very short Basic Training stint, they were stationed in the Philippines just before December 7. The Japanese forces were also attacking the Filipino islands and the two brothers found themselves cut off from their other soldiers when a platoon of Japanese soldiers attacked. They held them off for a while but during a new charge, a grenade was tossed into the foxhole they were shooting from. Harry dove on it and died in the explosion. His brother survived but shrapnel destroyed his face. An enraged young man went berserk and killed each of the Japanese soldiers responsible for his brother's death. He was the only survivor but when American forces reached the battle-zone. all they found were dead bodies and one very ravaged destitute young man.

As the doctors put it, "there wasn't enough left for any sort of restoration". Several months of healing took place and then the young man, head fully wrapped in bandages, was summoned to an office at the Capitol where he was told both would receive the Medal of Honor. The man, though, refused, stating he was "not ready to toss in my chips" and that he had "signed up to do a job that's not yet finished". He added that Harry had once told him "one man in the right place can effect the outcome of a battle ... or war" and he wants to be that man. His request is honored and he is told of the rigors he was about to face in the training he would undergo. And that to do the sorts of things he wanted to do, "his own identity must be erased. He must have no past ... and his future will be in a state of constant, imminent danger". With that, he was told he would be "trained to assume any position in our armed forces and to adapt a disguise to fit the situation" and that "as of this moment ... you are the Unknown Soldier".

One interesting point to mention deals with a story we will be told after a couple of adventures go by. We are given a rewrite of that Sgt. Rock adventures mentioned near the start of this article. In that revisit, we find the Unknown Soldier again at the Monument at night, standing in a pouring rain, when he notices a solitary man standing some distance from him, not seeing the Soldier in the dark. It is Sgt. Rock and he is paying a respectful visit to the Tomb and remembering the time one unnamed GI had saved the lives of Easy Co and wondering what ever happened to that soldier that only he ever saw [no mention of a body earmarked for the Tomb in this retelling]. The really interesting tidbit was the Unknown Soldier wondering if Sgt. Rock remembered the time that ...

In the more than one hundred tales we will then be able to follow of the Unknown Soldier, we will see him in a very wide range of roles to play and missions to accomplish. He will meet a good number of interesting people, most of whom come and go in one adventure. A couple, like the fascinating French black man dubbed Char Noir, will make several appearances over the years, always playing major and enjoyable parts in an adventure.

It is interesting that the idea of an Unknown Soldier, meant to denote a fallen warrior whose identity could not be ascertained, should be morphed into a mysterious hero who is sort of known while still being unknown but who is nevertheless one man out there kicking butt and saving lives. I am not sure I personally approve of the appropriation of the - to me - sacred original concept but ... once I decided to chill and just go with it, I found these are well written and definitely well drawn stories.

The Unknown Soldier in this series belongs in the compendium because of the many, many, many times he assumes a false identity - usually of the enemy - and goes undercover. That'll definitely get you hung as a spy by any army in any war.