GREECE: A First-Class War

“Herete, her etc [farewell],” waved black-clothed peasants when Lieut. General James Alward Van Fleet last week made his goodbye tour of army commands in loannina, Koizani and Salonika. Greeks consider upright, sturdy Van Fleet, who for 2% years has been the head of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory and Planning Group in Greece, the symbol of America and eleftheria (freedom). He had helped the Greeks to win what he once called “a “first-class war against international Communism.”

Greeks wanted “Van Flit,” as they call him, to remember their gratitude. During the days before his departure, gifts poured into his Grande Bretagne hotel room: rugs, trays, photographs, and a precious pair of cuff links (a gift from Queen Frederika). His harassed wife Helen sighed, “They spoil him so he is going to be impossible to live with.” Van Fleet said he was proud to be leaving behind a tautly trained Greek army, “today the finest in this part of the world.”

At a goodby party King Paul pinned on the general’s jacket the second highest Greek decoration, the George I cross. Van Fleet drank His Majesty’s health in grape juice (the Van Fleets are teetotalers), and said: “I should like to say that the one setback I had in Greece was when I asked Her Majesty the Queen not to come to the front. She did not listen to me.” Frederika smiled impishly. Paul replied, “It was our duty.”

Last Sunday evening Van Fleet laid a wreath on the unknown warrior’s tomb in Athens. Standing at military salute, he recited a poem he had written as a last tribute to the Greek soldier:

Soldier of Greece, I salute you.

You won the victory, you never failed us!

May you rest in everlasting peace.

May we, who are still living, be worthy of your sacrifice.

“Greater love hath no man than this,

That he lay down his life for his friends.”

James Van Fleet’s countrymen and the Greek people could forgive him the secondhand poetry; he had served the cause of freedom at first hand.