"There have been few more radical changes in the history of Western culture than the change in attitude towards war and the military profession brought about by World War I....
"The symbol of the change was the construction after 1918 in all the belligerent countries of monuments to the Unknown Soldier. Previously, monuments had always been erected to known individuals. About the Unknown Soldier nothing is known except that he lost his life. For all we know, he may, personally, have been a coward. In his monument, that is to say, we pay homage to the warrior, not as a hero but as a martyr.

-- W. H. Auden, _A Certain World: A Commonplace Book_ (1970), s.v. War