Forgotten WWI hero's service rediscovered after a home sale

close

Video

Highly decorated WWII veteran turns 100

'Fox & Friends' wishes a happy birthday to the WWII Air Force pilot

Exactly 100 years ago today, Lieutenant General Milton J. Foreman delivered the Armistice Day address at the University of Illinois. Foreman was a trailblazing military hero from Chicago whose service to the nation is only now being rediscovered largely thanks to a Florida resident who came across documents while moving.

Susan McCreery stumbled upon Foreman's collection upon moving into a new property. "I unknowingly acquired the collection in 1991 when I purchased my first little place, a condominium in Palm Beach County, Florida. The furnished unit and its contents had been owned by a lady named Margo Hirschbein, who’d passed away prior to the sale of her estate, and the sale was handled by an attorney with an office nearby."

Susan McCreery seated at her desk with parts of the collection (Courtesy Susan McCreery)

McCreery, a communications professional in higher education, would learn that Hirschbein was a member of Foreman's family. Foreman never married and had no children.

Like a history detective, she started to "piece together" the collection. 

"It became clear that the collection was about more than a well-loved family member," McCreery said. "The grand photos of him in uniform leading the cavalry, the photo of the marble bust of him, information that a ship had been named after him and the military certificates indicated that he’d played a leading role in history. I became intrigued and would buy whatever became available relating to him.

FORMER SENATOR AND VETERAN MAX CLELAND DIES

"Everything seemed to relay that he was a peace-loving man who was born at a time that called for bravery, decision and self-sacrifice and that he filled the role very well. His family lost everything in the Chicago fire [of October 1871], so he began to help support his mother and four sisters by working full time when he was barely 13. He never married or had children, and later he gave selflessly to his country, was one of the early founders of the American Legion and then became a well-respected Chicago alderman."

Gen. Milton Foreman. (Courtesy The American Legion)

McCreery didn’t want the memories of those who served to be forgotten. So she contacted Fox News.

She said it was important to remember Foreman and others to ensure "that the contributions of leaders like Foreman do not get lost to history. … In addition to reminding us of our common desires relating to overall peace and good against evil, thorough study of the international landscape he described helps us to appreciate the heartfelt contemplation that led to many decisions back then. He seemed to ruminate about different versions of the same broad issues that keep many awake today."

According to historian Seymour "Sy" Brody, who wrote the book, "Jewish Generals and Admirals in America’s Military," Foreman’s military career began in 1895 when he enlisted as a private to fight in the Spanish-American War. He later became a colonel in the First Calvary Division of the Illinois National Guard, where he would serve on the U.S.-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas. Brody described him as a hero of the Spanish-American War, the Mexican Border Service Campaign and the First World War.

Foreman with his Dog. Courtesy Susan McCreery

It was during the First World War where Foreman showed extraordinary bravery for sneaking across German lines to lay phone wires to alert artillery to enemy positions that were relentlessly firing against American positions.

For his service, Foreman received the Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery, the Distinguished Service Medal, Silver Star citations, as well as citations from Belgium and France.

Foreman, whose father immigrated from Germany, was one of five children and was brought up in a Jewish household. 

Michael Rugel, Director of Programs and Content at the National Museum of American Jewish Military History in Washington, D.C., said Foreman’s rise through the ranks was significant.

Foreman on left. Courtesy Susan McCreery

"Milton Foreman was one of an estimated 225,000 Jews in the American military during World War I," Rugel said. "But he was one of just a few that eventually rose to the rank of admiral or general. Already an experienced veteran by the time of the war, he was highly decorated for his heroic actions in combat. His military record was equaled by few of any religion. His work with veterans in the years after the war showed his continued dedication to his men. His rise to lieutenant general in the Illinois National Guard makes him a trailblazer amongst Jews serving in the American military."

COMMEMORATING A CENTURY OF HONOR AT TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER 

Upon leaving the battleground as a three-star general, Foreman would play an active role in the formation of the American Legion. He was designated national commander of the Legion in 1921.

"On the very day that General Foreman delivered his remarkable speech at the University of Illinois, a fellow founder of The American Legion, Rep. Hamilton Fish, was at the dedication of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier," John Raughter, a spokesman for the American Legion, told Fox News. "The words, wisdom and patriotism of these great men are testament to the vision and shaping of what would become the nation’s largest and most influential veterans service organization.

"Past National Commander Foreman came from humble roots," Raughter added. "His family lost everything during the Chicago fire. He was a self-educated lawyer. Yet, he rose through the military ranks with distinguished service in the Spanish-American War, the Mexican border War and World War I. He truly was the embodiment of an American success story."

As to General Foreman’s Armistice Day speech one hundred years ago today at the University of Illinois, Susan McCreery noted, "While describing when he’d first learned that WWI had ended while standing on the shores of the River Meuse, his first thought was ‘Thank God our young men are saved for us.’ He then described the initial hopeful belief that had sprung up in many hearts that ‘the armistice represented not so much the triumph of Allied Armies over the Germans as the wider triumph of good things in general over evil things in general.'"

General Foreman (on horse right) Leading the Troops - Courtesy Susan McCreery.

She highlighted an excerpt from his speech: "Take no stock in the doctrine sometimes advanced that war is a desirable thing because it develops the virtues of courage and decision and hardens the fibre of a nation that tends to grow soft in time of peace. Our individual lives call on us so constantly for courage and decision, whether our country happens to be at war or not, that our good fibers never soften. A man who makes a success of farming or engineering or medicine or teaching or law or banking or manufacturing is constantly called on for courage and decision; and though we had been for years at peace when we entered the great war in April 1917, no one who witnessed a single engagement, a single skirmish our young men engaged in 1917 or 1918 could doubt for a moment the quality of their courage or the vigor of their decision. If anything, they were too courageous – they bordered on the reckless; too decisive – they verged wholly on the impulsive. Yet these qualities had resulted wholly from the experience of peace."

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP 

General Foreman died in October 1935, and an obituary printed in The Sentinel newspaper describes his life. "General Milton J. Foreman richly merited the honors showered upon him over an extended period of his truly heroic life as well as its close last week when he was borne in triumph on an army caisson, the flag of his country to which he was steadfastly loyal, draped over his remains. All sincerely mourn the passing of as splendid a soldier and citizen as Chicago has ever been privileged to call its own."