Chapter 1 Cher Ami Monuments matter most to pigeons and soldiers. I myself have become a monument, a feathered statue inside a glass case. In life I was both a pigeon and a soldier. In death I am a piece of mediocre taxidermy, collecting dust in the Smithsonian Institution''s National Museum of American History. The museum has closed, and everyone has gone home. The last guests took their leave at five thirty, as they do every weekday, and even the janitorial staffers have finished their tasks: miles of floors polished and pine-scented, acres of displays gleaming and silent. A few hours remain before midnight. This is the eve of the one-hundred-year anniversary of what, according to the United States Army, was the most important day of my avian life: October 4, 1918.

I''m not sure I agree. That day was an important one, certainly, but days don''t carry the same meaning for pigeons as they do for humans, and my life comprised other days, days that might be equally worth note, if not to the army then at least to me and to those I loved. Pigeons can love. Pigeons cannot fight. Yet I was once as well known to schoolchildren and grown-up citizens alike as any human hero of what was then called the Great War. Hence the stuffing of my mangled body. Hence my enshrinement here, in the grandmother''s attic of the entire country. I hear the tale of my heroism-the simple version-over and over.

I used to hear it daily from patriotic patrons who knew it by rote. Time having passed, other wars having superseded my own, nowadays I hear it every week or so from history-buff parents-usually French or British but sometimes American-as they lead their kids from case to case. Or I hear it from precocious children themselves, animal lovers fascinated by what I did. In their reedy voices, birdlike in their own right, they tell the tale as follows: During that big war in France, some American soldiers got trapped in enemy territory. They were called the Lost Battalion because they got surrounded by the Germans. They released homing pigeon after homing pigeon with messages for help. They watched and watched as the little birds fell, shot down by enemy fire. But the last pigeon, Cher Ami right here, wasn''t going to let that stop him.

Even though he got shot through the chest and the leg, the brave bird struggled on, carrying his note for forty kilometers-American kids say twenty-five miles-until, close to death, he arrived at his loft at the American base. Thanks to Cher Ami, all the soldiers were saved. Their parents will smile and say, Very good. Occasionally a child who doesn''t know the story of the Lost Battalion will glance my way as she goes by. Catching sight of my single orange leg, she will ask, Why? Why does the pigeon only have one foot? Balanced there on my polished oak base, I will want to explain. Naturally, I can''t. The little girl and her parents will see that I am displayed near a Yeoman (F) uniform and a field telephone. They''ll read the plaque beneath the black-and-white photograph of an infantryman''s back as he trails a spool of wire through the woods, toward the front: telephones were one of several new technologies deployed in the service of waging war, it states.

troops strung miles of telephone wire in the field, allowing instant communication. but the lines proved vulnerable, and the army often relied on traditional means to relay messages-human runners and carrier pigeons. The little girl and her parents will look at the engraved silver band around my remaining leg, identifying me as National Union of Racing Pigeons Number 615. I''ve never thought of myself that way, only as Cher Ami, my given name: French, meaning "Dear Friend," though I was a British bird. The family will read my placard, quite brief, which states: Cher Ami, one of the 600 carrier pigeons deployed by the U.S. Army Signal Corps, was awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Palm for his heroic service. Huh, they''ll say, and wander off, satisfied.

And I, too, will feel satisfied, partly, at the knowledge they''ve gained. The placard gets my name at least, if not my gender. Even now, more than a century after I was first misidentified, that error still grates. Though originally registered as a Black Check cock, I''m really a Blue Check, and when I was being taxidermied, they discovered that I was-that I am-a hen. The man doing the job informed them as much, but since they''d already had the placard made and budgets were tight, they didn''t pay to change it. Good enough for government work, they said, and laughed. I''ve been wrongly called a cock bird ever since, in history books and military records. I never behaved like a typical hen, it''s true.

But I am a female, and female war heroes are rarely given their due. This erasure annoys me. I do appreciate that placard for its refusal to overemphasize me: one of six hundred. There were so many of us, and so many of us could be called heroic. My fellow pigeon President Wilson, for instance, my fond companion during the war who joined me for a time in this display case, this eternal institutional afterlife. They shipped him over to the Pentagon in 2008, I think. I miss him. Though he''s not the bird I miss the most.

Pigeons have an almost bottomless capacity for longing. I''ve still got Sergeant Stubby in here with me, sleeping now. He and I talk and talk and talk when we''re both awake. He was the mascot of the 102nd Infantry, 26th Division, accompanying his unit in the hellish French trenches, awarded a gold medal by General John J. Pershing. A consummate joiner, as are most dogs, he was made a lifetime member of the Red Cross, the Young Men''s Christian Association, and the American Legion. He stands over there by the canteen, the bread tin, the wire cutters, the first-aid kit, the mess kit, and the trench periscope, looking as pert and ferocious as he did in life, or so he assures me. His paws, quick and light, look ready to leap from his mahogany block mount, and even in repose his underslung jaw seems ready to bite the enemy or eat a treat.

His ears appear as though they could still rotate to hear an incoming shell, and his studded leather collar gives his stalwart adorability the slight sharpness that befits an army pup. I never call him Stubby; I call him Sarge, because my doing so pleases him. He''s a dog of uncertain breed but seems mostly Boston terrier in appearance and temperament. He''s also the only dog-as he''ll tell you, repeatedly-to have been nominated for rank and promoted to sergeant through combat. I don''t much care about rank. Most of us pigeons are less fixated on titles and decorations than on missions completed. In this respect we resemble the flying aces-or so I gather; we had no contact with them during the war and certainly never sought to emulate them. Something about performing one''s duties alone, aloft above the carnage, may engender this attitude.

Dogs, on the other hand, are infantry through and through, not to mention rule-bound and craving of human regard. Sarge deserves the regard that he received. He served eighteen months on the front, in seventeen battles. He gave comfort to the wounded, saved his regiment from a mustard-gas attack, and stopped a German soldier by clasping the seat of his pants in his terrier jaws until human reinforcements arrived to complete the capture. He, unlike me, is excited about my centenary. But as I said, dogs are like that. I am to wake him at midnight so he and I can celebrate. Knowing Sarge, this will mean that we will reminisce and sing "Auld Lang Syne.

" Dogs love singing. And I love Sergeant Stubby. His uncomplicated good cheer and patience remain constant even in death, and I can see why the men of the Yankee Division adored him. His owner had his pelt mounted on a plaster cast after he died in his sleep in 1926, and Sarge passed into the heterogeneous holdings of the Smithsonian in 1956, where he still greets each day as though this placement were the best and most unexpected surprise. Sarge is, however, not immune to indignation and is given to wondering aloud why the army hasn''t seen fit to present either of us-or, for that matter, the many other creatures who served alongside us, birds and horses and mules and dogs-with the Distinguished Service Cross. The DSC was not, I remind him, an honor customarily presented to animals, at least not while any of us were alive. Well, a posthumous award is still an award, he always replies, snuffling. General Pershing did give me a small silver medal, but it was just a made-up thing.

Though aren''t all honors, really? Either we believe that they matter or we don''t. Still, I like having my Croix de Guerre here next to me. Next to, not on, as it''s too large and heavy for a pigeon to wear, and I haven''t a uniform on which to pin it. The French have long been more willing to perceive valor in sapient creatures of species other than human. Their citation notes that I-NURP Number 615, Cher Ami, un pigeon voyageur-was responsible for the safe delivery of twelve battlefield messages in France. Here in the States, I''m remembered only for that final voyage, but I flew many missions before being invalided out trying to save my Lost Battalion. That was just my tiny corner of the war. Even from my bird''s-eye perspective, the magnitude of our forces'' involvement was hard to take in.

Within little more than a year of its late entry into the long conflict, the United States military raised, trained, and transported an army of two million men to France. Despite the brevity of our participation, 53,402 American soldiers lost their lives in combat; 204,002 were wounded. Over a million Americans-more soldiers.