Two Casualties of Belleau Wood, Taking a Closer Look. Part Two. Weeden E. Osborne

Lieutenant, junior grade, Weeden E. Osborne.

Weeden E. Osborne was the first commissioned offer in the history of the U.S. Navy to be killed in ground combat overseas. He was also the first officer of the Navy's Dental Corps to be killed in action.  He was the only Navy Medical Corps officer to die in combat in World War One.

He isn't the exception to the rule in regard to just that.

Weeden is actually fairly difficult to obtain accurate information on, at least if you are trying to do it via the net.  Still, we can learn a little.

He was born on November 13, 1892 in Chicago.  Lake Villa, where he seems to have grown up, as we'll see, is a suburb of Chicago today.

He went to primary school, however, at Allendale Farms.  Allendale School was a school for orphans.  As we'll see, other evidence also suggests that Osborne had lost his parents at an early age.  At any rate, he graduated from that facility and, after completing school he went to work and worked his way through Northwestern in Chicago, graduating dental school in 1915.  That would have made him a dentist at the young age, at least for today, of 23.  And that's a pretty impressive record for somebody who had an apparent rough start in life.

What exactly he did thereafter is a little unclear, but at least a paper with connections to Allendale Farm (but which focused on dogs) claims that he relocated to St. Joseph Missouri, where he started his dental practice.  If he did, it seems that by 1917 he had relocated to Denver, Colorado, where he was instructing in the Dental School at Denver University, which was noted about him by the National Dental Association, of which he must have been a member.*  The ADA's journal spoke highly of him but noted that his disposition was "nervous", and also energetic.  It might well have been, given that he had gone from being a resident of a school for orphans to a dentist at rocket speed.  That may well have been while he moved on to being a dental professor in Denver, or perhaps his young age made it difficult for him to gather a practice.

He wasn't at that long before the Great War arrived.

He seems to have entered the service from Denver but gave a Chicago residence as his permanent residence upon entering the service, for which there could be a lot of reasons.  He listed his sister as his nearest relative, and she was also living in Chicago, in some sort of association with Wheaten College, but he didn't give her address on Racine as his.**

He was carried on the Navy's roles as a Dental Surgeon, with an appointment date of May 8, 1917.  He served in Boston and Alabama in that role until March 1918 when he was assigned by the Navy to the Marine Corps.  The Marines are a branch of the Navy, and this was even more true at the time than it is now, and the Marine Corps was provided with all of its medical personnel from the Navy.

He had only been at the front with the Marines for a few days when the Marine unit he was attached to went into action at Belleau Wood.  While there, he exposed himself to German fire again and again as he went into the field to help bring in wounded Marines.  He was helping to carry wounded Cpt. Donald F. Duncan when shell fire killed both Osborne and Duncan.

The Recruit Dental Station at the Navy's Great Lakes training facility, which is in his native home of Chicago, is named after him.  And the Marine Corps has remembered him and another dental corps member in the name of an award that they give to members of that branch annually.

So here too, was this a sad story?  It's certainly not a typical one.  Weeden seems to have been a Chicago orphan who overcame his circumstances to become a dentist at a very young age, while keeping in touch with a sister in Chicago.  He was killed at age 25, just starting out, but seems to have applied the heroism that characterized his life to what he saw on the field of battle.

Marker for Lt. J.G. Weeden E. Osborne at the Belleau Wood Cemetery in France.

*This era saw the real rise of professional organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Dental Association, and the American Bar Association.  All of these organizations were working to improve the professionalism of their professions, and they all had very wide membership.  The percentages of practitioners who are members of these organizations has declined greatly since then.

**I don't know Chicago at all, but Racine is depicted as the street of residence of the Irish policeman who is killed by the mob in the film The Untouchables.

December 6, 1918. Crossing the Rhine, Crossing the Atlantic, Crossing the English Channel, Villa back, U.S. ponders getting even with Mexico, Caspar Collins a tank, German Crown Prince Nervous, Billings girl suggests Black Crows wrong.

American soldiers crossing the Rhine by Ferry, December 6, 1918.

American soldier in France registering as he board a ship back to the United States.  Note the soldier on the left wearing the heavy mackinaw.

African American troops in England gather to board ships back to the United States.  December 6, 1918.  Some of these soldiers appear to be wearing trench coats which would indicate that they are officers (there were black units with black officers in World War One), or that they have received British issue.  The woman with the basket is helping hand out wheat and chocolate Red Cross candy bars.

American soldiers from units assigned to the British Expeditionary Force on post war leave in England.  December 6, 1918.

 Newpaper reaaders in Casper learned that the late Lt. Caspar Collins might have a tank named after him, although the message that naming a tank after a soldier who became separated from his support in combat could have been questioned.

 A "Pretty Young Woman" in Billings and Northern Wyoming suggest that yes, you do need money even if "you look like that".

Laramie readers learned that there was a move afoot to boycott Mexican oil to teach "Germanized" Mexico a lesson.

2018 Army-Navy Game Uniform: Black Lions of Cantigny

The passing of George H. W. Bush

George H. W. Bush during his single term in office.

This isn't going to be a lengthy post nor is it going to be a hagiography.

All too often when a former President dies, the recollections of the man turn towards just that.  People who thought the President the most vile of men are suddenly his greatest admirers, and he had no faults, political or personal.  This post isn't like that.  I don't think that George Bush was a great President, which isn't to say that I thought he was a bad one either.

Having said that, when I pondered the passing of the first President Bush, it first struck me that George H. W. Bush was the last American President I actually respected.  I pointed that out to Long Suffering Spouse and she in turn said "Not President Clinton?".

I pondered that for a moment, and frankly I have to revise my comment.  I did respect President Clinton as President, although his personal conduct was reprehensible, which is something that relates to this post.*  And I didn't disrespect  his son George W. Bush.  So clearly I have to modify my statement to fit what I really was feeling.

So I'll modify my comment.  George H. W. Bush was the last Republican President that I respected.  President Clinton is the last Democratic President that I respected, and I respect him pretty much solely as an effective President, not as a human being.  George Bush was a really admirable human being, it not a really great President.  Beyond that, frankly, he was a really admirable man.

I can't claim that he was a really effective President.  Clinton was probably better in that regard. But Bush really stands out for two reasons; 1) he entered his country's service as a teenager in a really dangerous role when he didn't really have to and, 2) he was married to his wife Barbara for 73 years.

In those ways, he stands out as a really exemplary person.

So point one.

George Bush entered the U.S. Navy and became the youngest pilot in American service World War Two.**

Navy trainer flown by Cadet George H. W. Bush.

He didn't have to do that.

He would have had to serve in the military, no doubt, during World War Two.  But he didn't have to join the Navy and seek to be a combat pilot, which lead to his being shot down during the war.  

The submarine rescue of George H. W. Bush.

But that is reflective of his generation (and no, I don't think they were the "Greatest Generation").  They did things like that.

Now, in fairness, one U.S. President since George H. W. Bush was also a military pilot, that being his son George W. Bush.  He never saw combat, but he did volunteer for Vietnam but wasn't sent.  I think that speaks well of him.

But, while it will engender controversy or even rage with my conservative friends, others of the post World War Two generation who have floated up to high office don't compare as well as a rule, although some do.  Al Gore did go to Vietnam, but he was in the military press corps. Still he went.  John Kerry served in the Navy as a SEAL and that's really admirable, but then he came back and became a war protester and I'm not really very impressed with that.  

There are other examples of men and women in high office (particularly now that they're entering politics as veterans from recent wars) so my view here may be over broad, but I am speaking of those who have made very high office.  Dick Cheney, who is a conservative hero to some and particularly in my state, where its often mistakenly assumed that he's a native (he's not, he's from Nebraska actually) received draft deferments five times.  Donald Trump didn't go to Vietnam either.  President Obama, whom I credit as being a very intelligent and personally decent man, was obviously post Vietnam War in age, but it isn't as if "community service", whatever that is, amounts to the same thing in any sense.***

Secondly, he was married to Barbara Bush for 73 years.

Barbara Bush, Boris Yeltsin, and the Bush dogs, on the White House lawn.  Somehow this reflects all of three of them in a way that we aren't surprised by, but which would surprise us about any post Bush President (except perhaps George W. Bush) and any post Yeltsin leader of Russia.

That may seem like an odd thing to note, but its a sign of his decency.  Devotion to a single person, as a spouse, is something that's very significant and which has become sadly lacking in the decades following the 1950s.  Barbara Bush herself noted that for a time she suffered severely from depression and her husband George stuck by her side.  Now, that sort of things is pretty rare.  It shouldn't be.

So, there you have it.  as an example, he's a really good decent personal one.  And that's why he seems to be to have been the last really admirable man to have served in the oval office.  He might not have been the most effective, and I don't agree with all of his political decisions by any means. But in terms of life's tests, he passed them better than most.

_________________________________________________________________________________

*My strongly Republican friends, of whom I have many, will be absolutely horrified by that comment, but frankly President Clinton was a very effective President.  He had the personal morals of an alley cat, but then so did the excessively beloved and not nearly effective President John F. Kennedy, whom everyone on both sides of the political tent, save for me personally claim to love and admire.

Clinton not only had a balanced budget on occasion, he ran a surplus at least once.  He also fought an air war in the Balkans nearly without controversy and without drawing in ground troops, a really dangerous situation that turned out well.  It's the only example of that being done in history.  But personally, he's not very admirable at all, nor his is, in my view, his spouse.  He's a good example of a politician being a potentially really good office holder while not necessarily being a really good person.  Jimmy Carter was an example of the opposite.

**I'm not suggesting that a person needs to have experience in the military in order to be President. Rather, I'm suggesting that people who have risen to the call of some sort of service are better people in an intrinsic sense than those who don't.  I'm  not including myself, I'll note, in some sort of special admirable status, even though I do have peacetime military service.  But that's different.

Part of that is that some rational call to service has to exist in order for it to be meaningful.  I'd give as an example of this Herbert Hoover's post World War One service to the country and to Europe which was of a humanitarian service nature.  Highly effective, it also came to him at great personal cost.

FWIW, Bush will be, as has been noted, the last veteran of World War Two to have been President.  That there were several is hardly surprising given the size of the conflict.

***President Obama, whom again I'll credit with being very intelligent and personally very decent, both of which are true of his wife Michele as well, shared Woodrow Wilson's belief that speech was action, which it isn't, and turned out to be extremely flexible on certain issues that show a certain lack of a backbone.  He strikes me as a person who was a naturally great professor, but not President.

Must Watch! CBS Introduction of Army/Navy game 2017 - Chills. From the 2017 Game

2018 Army-Navy Game Uniform: First Infantry Division (Hmmm, not quite sure what I think of this one)

Two Casualties of Belleau Wood, Taking a Closer Look. Part One. Frank O. Engstrom.

Note, all of the research for this entry, all of the original work on the entry, and all of the inspiration for it, and the original photographs, are all the work of Marcus Holscher.

Recently on our companion blog, Some Gave All, we posted a photo essay on Belleau Wood, France.  We linked that post in here the other day.

Like the poem In Flanders Fields related, in the photos you can see "row on row" of crosses marking the graves of the lost.  Each one of those combatants has his own story of a life that was cut short.  Here we look at just two such lives, however, and for particular reasons.

We start with Pvt. Frank O. Engstrom of Rawlins Wyoming.

Indeed, we posted a little on Pvt. Engstrom the other day on another of our companion blogs, Today In Wyoming's History. We'll start again with that entry.

Some Gave All: Belleau Wood, France. Frank O. Engstrom.

Some Gave All: Belleau Wood, France:

This is a selection of photographs from a much larger entry on our companion blog, Some Gave All.  These feature the chapel at Belleau Wood and are linked in here to note the listing of a Wyoming soldier, a member of the 1st Division, who lost his life at Belleau Wood.

Frank Engstrom entered the service from Rawlins.

Lest we forget.

So there we have a little more, but still not much.  Who was Pvt. Engstrom of Rawlins and what was his life like?

It's not all that easy to tell much about him, but we can tell a little. To start with, he was a 21 year old native of Rawlins Wyoming who was employed as a fireman for the Union Pacific Railroad when he entered the Army as a conscript.  And he'd lived a pretty hard life, by modern standards, up until that time.

Fireman. This photograph is from 1942 and isn't of Frank Engstrom, who had been dead for over twenty years. But the job was the same in 1942 on coal burning steam locomotives.  This fireman in 1942 appears to have been about the same age as Engstrom was when he entered the service in 1917.

According to his draft registration card, Frank Engstrom was born on April 15, 1896, in the town of Rawlins.  He was, according to that draft card, of medium height and medium build, with light brown eyes and brown hair.  He was a single man, but according to his draft card, attested to in Laramie County (not Carbon County) he was supporting his mother when registered for the draft.

In the twenty-one years that passed between his birth and death, Engstrom saw his share of tragedy.

By the time he was conscripted his father, August Engstrom, had died.  We can't easily tell from what, but he was still alive at the time of the 1910 census and was about 43 years old at that time, not all that old.  He didn't make it to 53.  While I can't tell for sure, given the names of the children and the last name, August was likely born in Sweden and had immigrated to the United States.  He died sometime between 1910 and 1917 leaving his wife, Mary, and four children.  The ages of the children at the time of his death are unknown, as the date of his death is unknown.

In the 1910 Census August and Mary reported their son Frank's name as "Franz", although that may be a handwriting glitch.  Both names are fairly Nordic and either could be correct.  In 1910 the August and Mary Engstrom family had two other children, Olga (1899) and Effie (1896).  A John and "Ostrend" would come later, with John being born in 1901 or 1902.  "Ostrend" was younger than that, and that odd name wasn't her name.  Her name was Astraid and she was born in 1906.*

The November 4, 1915 Rawlins Republican reported that Frank was at the wedding of his sister Effie, who married a Wyoming State Prison Guard, Alex Gordon just before then.  He was accompanied by his sister Olga, then 14 or 15 years old.  That prior July the Republican reported that Frank had been in Laramie as a "business visitor", at which time he would have been 19 years old.  His sister Effie was about 15 or 16 at the time of her marriage to Alex.

There were quite a number of Engstrom's in Carbon County Wyoming, and indeed there still are an appreciable number.  Chances are high that Frank is related to some of the Engstrom's still there, although none of them would be his direct descendants.  His sisters had strongly Scandinavian names and that suggests his parents, as noted, were from Sweden, given his last name.  Indeed, a John Engstrom, but not his younger brother, was a wine merchant in Rawlins at the time and did sufficiently well to return to Sweden for a year with his family after World War One. That Engstrom was still living in Rawlins at the time of the 1940 census, then age 63.

In 1915 Frank's sister Effie married Alex Gordon, a  guard at the penitentiary in Rawlins.  She was two years younger than he was, having been born in 1898.  She was a young bride at about 15 or 16 years of age (more likely 16).  While that seem shockingly young, its worth remembering that its quite likely that by 1915 Frank was supporting his mother, brother and three sisters.  One sister marrying at that time probably didn't seem unreasonable under the economic circumstances of the day.

By August 8, 1917, Frank was notified to report for a draft physical at the Carbon County Courthouse.

He was apparently found physically fit for service, but applied for an exemption on the basis that he was supporting his mother and younger siblings.  That request was granted by the local draft board.  Indeed, it seems only reasonable that this be done.

Frank Engstrom was notified that he was likely to be conscripted, however, by October 18, 1917.  Apparently his exemption has been waived or reconsidered in some fashion.  It's hard to know what, given that two of his siblings remained quite young.  Apparently he either reconsidered his circumstances himself, or perhaps other family members were deemed the proper parties to take up the economic burden of the young Frank.

He departed Rawlins on Saturday November 8, 1917 on a train owned by his employer ,the Union Pacific, with fourteen other men who were entering the service and who were bound for Camp Lewis, Washington.

The Union Pacific Railroad station in Rawlins Wyoming. This is the same station that existed when Frank Engstrom left for Camp Lewis, Washington, and the same station he reported to for work.

The prior day the band from Hanna Wyoming traveled over to send them off after a banquet at which they played and which was held at the Ferris Hotel. The Elks Club served the men and their families.  That night they could view, if they wanted to, the movie The Slacker for free, as the theater owner had opened up attendance for them.  We don't know if Engstrom went or not.

The Strand Movie Theater in Rawlins.  It was the theater in 1917.

On September 28, 1918, Pvt. Engstrom was reported Missing In Action, with that news released to the public after the war was over, on December 7, 1918.

Frustratingly, only a few days later he was reported as only "slightly wounded".

The May 8, 1919, Rawlins Republican reported the sad news that Frank was confirmed killed in action.  It would later be determined that he was the first man in Rawlins to have died in action, with his death coming on July 19, 1918.  The slowness of confirming news of battlefield casualties, which was already a topic of controversy late in the war, is shown by the fact that Engstrom died on July 19, but was reported as missing in action as late as September, with his death not confirmed until after the war.

It must have been awful for his sisters.

By that time, his mother and his sister Olga had already died before him. We don't know of what, but we do know that it occurred after he left for service in France.  His mother Mary was likely in her 40s.  Olga was three years younger than Frank.  Chances are high that they both died of the 1918 Influenza Epidemic.  Their ages and circumstances would have been right for that.

In November 1919, the newly formed VFW post was named after him.  Sometime prior to 1926 another Rawlins serviceman by the last name of Duncan had his name named to the post.

Effie Gordon continued to live in Rawlins after the war.  She and her husband had a son in 1919. They named him Frank.  Alex became the County Coroner for Carbon County.  Effie became active in Democratic politics and still was as late as 1960.

A John Engstrom was reported in the 1940 census still living in Rawlins at age 63, but that was certainly not Frank's brother and more likely the (former?) wine merchant who had returned to Sweden for a year after the passage of the Volstead Act in which to tour it. Was he related.  He may well have been, given the propensity for immigrants and immigrant families to settle near their fellow expatriates and family. But there were a lot of Engstroms in Carbon County and its not easy to tell.  Another John Engstrom was reported living there as well who was 33 years of old,  having been born in 1910.  That was likely Frank's brother.

Today the VFW Post in Rawlins is the Independence Rock Post.

It seems they forgot him after all.

So is this a sad story?

Well, maybe, maybe not.  Maybe its the story of how life was at the time.  This seems to be how veterans of the war viewed it themselves.

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*There's some slack in the details as to John and Astraid (Ostrend) Engstrom, and more slack as to Astraid/Ostrend.  Ostrend would be a very unlikely name and is more like a place name, when naming people after locations would have been highly unusual.  Astraid, on the other hand, was a name then in use and which sounds somewhat similar.  There was an Astraid Engstrom of the right age living in Rawlins at the time and she was young enough to have been in 8th Grade in 1921.  She wasn't, we'd note, the only Astraid living in Rawlins at the time as an Astraid Peterson also was.

In the 1920 census both John and Astraid are simply listed without parents, which would have been common for orphaned children.

Capping it off, however, the social notes of the Wyoming Times of Evanston reported that Mrs. Alex Gordon and her sister "Miss Astraid Austin", both of Rawlins, were reported visiting her brother, "Alex Engstrum" of Evanston.  We are totally unaware of there being an "Alex Engstrum" in this picture and we suspect that Alex Engstrum was John Engstrom, and that the first name was a typographical error.  If it was, we also suspect that John moved back to Rawlins. Alternatively, there could have been an unreported male relative in this scenario.  It's pretty clear, however, that "Mrs. Alex Gordon" of Rawlins was Effie Gordon who had one sister, and therefore its pretty clear that the sister's name was Astraid.  The new last name would suggest that she was adopted into a family named Austin in light of her still being a minor.  The degree to which that might have been informal would be reflected by school notes from the following year reporting her name once again as Astraid Engstrom.  On the other hand, the reporter might not have been great and may have confused Engstrom with Austin.

Regarding John, there were a number of John Engstrom's living in Rawlins at the time and therefore there are additionally a number of possible birth dates, although we are certain that this was his name.

All of these individuals trails are ultimately lost. There are enough Engstroms left in Carbon County to make us suspect that the descendants of these folks are still there, but we can't tell from the slim resources we had to make this post.

December 4, 1918. Americans arrive, Wilson leaves, Flu returns.

American trucks arriving in Kylburg German, December 4, 1918.

The SS George Washington, with President Wilson on board, awaits departure for Europe.

Today (Actually yesterday) is the Start of Advent for 2018. Time for a Fast?

 The midnight sun over Advent Bay, Norway, 1905.  Things seem dark?  Maybe time to refocus a bit.

Yes, the Christmas Seasons has officially arrived with the start, today, of Advent!*

Now, most folks will of course know what Advent is, but for those who do not, and I know that there are plenty of people who do not, including not only secular people but many devout Christian Protestants, Advent is the liturgical season which preceded Christmas.  During this time, in Latin influenced Christendom, which by this point would mean all of Western Europe, the Western Hemisphere, and much of Sub Sahara Africa (and many other places as well), this seasons is characterized as being a time of joy in anticipation of Christmas itself, or in religious terms, the feast commemorating the birth of the Savior, that being Christ's Mass. . .IE., Christmas.**

So, time for a fast!

Eh?

 Yup.  Some Christians fast this time of year.  Indeed, they are obligated to in some instances.

Now this is something that's blisteringly foreign to most people in the Western World.  The whole idea is a shocker. This is the season of endless parties. . . that holiday gathering of friends, relatives and family, the office party or parties, the gatherings in dorm rooms, lecture halls and the like. Even people who only vaguely try to adhere to a Christian life will be gathering for Christmas parties and partaking in mass quantities of holiday cookies, cake, and, yes. . . booze.

Mr. Fezziwig dances with his workers at his company party in the famous scene from A Christmas Carol, in which Dickens portrays the jovial and generous Fezzwig as the model of a Christian employer. . and not without good reason.

But not everyone does that.

And perhaps that's a good thing for those of us in the Western World to recall.

In the East, and by that I mean in Eastern Christendom geographically, culturally and Canonically, this is a time to fast.

What?

Yes.

The Nativity Fast is here!

Now, to explain this I'm going to lean heavily on something I just linked in right above. The item above is linked in (taken?, swiped?, borrowed?) from an excellent blog called Fear Not Little Flock.  Its' the blog of the wife of a married Byzantine Catholic Priest.*** The chart sets out the season in the various spheres of the Apostolic Church's realms.  Indeed it does a very nice of job of doing so.

For those not too familiar with it, the Catholic Church has several Rites, only one of which is the Latin Rite.  The Latin Rite is that rite of the Church that most people call the Roman Catholic Church and which is by far the biggest rite.  It certainly isn't the only one, but for historical reasons it became the largest and has spread around the globe.  That rite never displaced the other ones however, and as noted above there are, in addition, the Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Byzantine, and Maronite Rites. The Ambrosian Rite is very close to the Latin Rite and actually exists principally in a certain region of Italy.  The Mozarabic Rite is one that was once dominant on the Iberian Peninsula and today is principally found around Toledo Spain.  The Maronite Rite is major rite that is centered in Lebanon. The Byzantine Rite of the Catholic Church is that Catholic Rite which reflects that part of the Apostolic tradition in the East which remained with or returned to full Communion with Peter's seat.  In form of its liturgy, it's very close to the Greek Orthodox Church.

Indeed, that isn't all of the rites, but given as its the major ones (and a couple of more minor ones), it's a good list.  In addiction to those listed in this charter there are also Bragan, Dominican, Carmelite and Carthusian, which are very narrowly used and all of which are associated, like the Ambrosian and Mozarabic, with the Latin Rite.

The Maronite Rite is a West Syriac Rite, which also includes the Syriac and the Malankarese Rites.  The related East Syriac includes the Chaldean and Syro Malabarese Rites.  The Byzantine family of Rites includes not only the Byzantine Rite but the Armenian Rite. The Byzantine Rite itself shares its liturgical forms with the Eastern Orthodox so its not surprising that there are some Catholic Rites that share their liturgical forms with the Oriental Orthodox, those being the Coptic and Ethiopian/Abyssinian Rites.

Which brings us to this, as its part of the story we're about to relate, even though this wasn't intended to be a post on church history..  Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches are also Apostolic Churches, along with the Catholic Church.  I don't know the fasting disciplines of the Oriental Orthodox, other than that I'm sure they have them, but the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox share the same fasting disciplines, as essentially they are close in form.****Regarded such things as fasting, the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Rite of the Catholic Church are very close, reflecting a common Eastern origin.

Okay, so what can we learn from this?  Well quite a lot.  And its significant.

For one thing, Advent in the Eastern Rite begins on November 14 or 15, not in late November or early December as it does in the Latin Rite.  And it begins even earlier in the Ambrosian Rite which is very closely related to the Latin Rite. That probably suggest that it began earlier in the Latin Rite at one time as well, particularly as the Mozarabic Rite also commences Advent earlier.  As the chart shows, the Maronites, also start it earlier.

Where the Eastern Rite really stands out, however, is that it has a Nativity Fast tradition.

As the chart notes, the Advent fasting obligation is not as strict as the Lenten one for the Eastern Rite.  That fast, from the Latin Rite prospective, is very strict indeed.  In the Latin Rite, since the 1960s, the fasting discipline has become very minor and is confined to certain days Lent with the number of days of Abstinence, i.e,. days in which Roman Catholics abstain from meat, being likewise so confined in the United States (this isn't the case, however, everywhere).  The Eastern Rite, however, during Lent steps in various items which the Faithful must abstain from, with the ultimate list being quite expansive.

So what is the Nativity Fast in the Eastern Rite? Well the Church in the Eparchy of Phoenix states the following regarding it:

Fasting
Abstain from meat and dairy products on Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. Dairy is allowed on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but still no meat. (See our list of Philip's Fast Dinner Ideas.)
Fast from certain foods, such as soda, alcoholic beverages or candy.
With each meal, eat only an amount that is sufficient for nutritional needs, without feeling full.
Fast from select forms of entertainment (television, movies, radio, internet, novels, etc.).

That right there exceeds what a lot of Latin Rite Catholics do during Lent.  

Note, however, I don't know if the Nativity Fast is obligatory for Eastern Rite Catholics.  I do know that, just from listening to Catholic Stuff You Should Know, which as a Byzantine Catholic Priest as one of its hosts, that the Byzantine Catholic Church had let its fasting discipline weaken a bit over the years but it is now reviving it.  Brief net research suggest that the Nativity Fast may be optional, but if you are researching the topic, don't take advice from me, as I don't know the answers here.

The Antiochean Orthodox Church, part of the Eastern Orthodox, takes this view:

Guidelines for the Nativity Fast

The Nativity Fast

(November 15 through December 24)

The Nativity Fast is one of the four Canonical Fasting Seasons in the Church year. This is a joyous fast in anticipation of the Nativity of Christ. That is the reason it is less strict than other fasting periods. The fast is divided into two periods. The 1st period is November 15th through December 19th when the traditional fasting discipline (no meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil) is observed. There is dispensation given for wine and oil on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Similarly, fish, wine, and oil are permitted on Saturdays and Sundays. The 2nd period is December 20th through 24th when the traditional fasting discipline (no meat, dairy, fish, wine, and oil) is observed. There is dispensation given for wine and oil only on Saturday and Sunday during this period. Here are the guidelines:

Meat	Dairy	Fish	Wine	Oil
beef, chicken, pork, turkey, elk, veal, lamb, deer, rabbit, buffalo, and so forth	milk, eggs, cheese, butter, yogurt, cream, and so forth	fish with a backbone (not including shrimp, octopus, shellfish, squid, or other seafood.	(some include all types of alcohol in this category)	(some include all types of oil in this category)
Abstain.	Abstain.	Permitted only on Saturdays and Sundays before December 20. (some permit fish Tuesdays and Thursdays also)	Permitted only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, & Sundays before December 20.	Permitted only on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, & Sundays before December 20.

Abstinence includes refraining from the food and drink mentioned above, as well as from smoking. The Eucharistic Fast means abstaining from at least the previous midnight for communing at a morning Liturgy.

The Purpose of Fasting

The purpose of fasting is to focus on the things that are above, the Kingdom of God. It is a means of putting on virtue in reality, here and now. Through it we are freed from dependence on worldly things. We fast faithfully and in secret, not judging others, and not holding ourselves up as an example.

• Fasting in itself is not a means of pleasing God. Fasting is not a punishment for our sins. Nor is fasting a means of suffering and pain to be undertaken as some kind of atonement. Christ already redeemed us on His Cross. Salvation is a gift from God that is not bought by our hunger or thirst.
• We fast to be delivered from carnal passions so that God’s gift of Salvation may bear fruit in us.
• We fast and turn our eyes toward God in His Holy Church. Fasting and prayer go together.
• Fasting is not irrelevant. Fasting is not obsolete, and it is not something for someone else. Fasting is from God, for us, right here and right now.
• Most of all, we should not devour each other. We ask God to “set a watch and keep the door of our lips.”

Do Not Fast

• between December 25 and January 5 (even on Wednesdays and Fridays);
• if you are pregnant or nursing a newborn;
• during serious illness;
• without prayer;
• without alms-giving;
• according to your own will without guidance from your spiritual father.

Okay, whether its obligatory or not, its certainly the case that for most Americans the concept of abstaining from something during the Christmas Seasons is simply inconceivable, although ironically thousands of Americans will making pretenses towards abstention following the Christmas Season, which gets me to my next point.

 Christmas beer. . .something that most Americans are much more familiar with than Nativity Fasts.  While some might suppose that this is a recent phenomenon that came about due to the micro beer boom, in fact special ales for Christmas are a very long European tradition and go back into the Middle Ages.  Special Ale was in fact a very typical feature of Christmas feasts and usually significant landowners either brewed a good Christmas ale or imported it, even in the Middle Ages, from Germany which was already noted for its superior brewing.

I've noted here before the weirdness of the hip cool secular left repeatedly discovering, but not admitting it, disciplines that were long existent in the Apostolic Churches.  It's really bizarre but in recent years the hip and cool have "discovered" such things as "intermittent fasting", fasting and specific item fasting in the form of "purging" in general which the Apostolic Churches, together with the Jewish faith and Islam, have had as disciplines forever.

The anemic part of the secular trendy discovering, or pretending to discover those things is that they're always anemic as at best their tied to a vague sense that there ought to be a purpose to what they're doing and at worst they're tied to the concept that "if I personally do this, I'll live forever".  No wonder so many people who do this, with such little purpose tied to it, fall of the wagon while the Apostolic Faithful do it year after year without being noticed.

Well, what about an Advent Fast.  Extreme?

Well, not really.  

This is a season of joy, to be sure, and I'm not going to make the argument that there is no pleasure without pain (although that's likely quite true).  What fasting does, among other things, is to emphasize a point, and a point that needs to be made.

It focuses.

There is a point to Christmas and Advent emphasizes that point. The point isn't running around with eggnog spiked with Makers Mark and having a hangover the following day.  The point is likely the antithesis of that.  And the fasting discipline of the Eastern churches really emphasizes that.

It seems foreign to us, as it is.  But that's because the point of modern Western existence is, well pointless.  People run around after money or self fulfillment or any number of other vague catchphrases that have no deeper metaphysical or philosophical meaning at all. To try to fill that, they try to fill it with self directed meaning that's just as meaningless.  It's no wonder that all sorts of vague movements meaning nothing, from self awareness efforts, to confused efforts to redefine gender and base your identity on that (why on earth would anyone want their identify defined by their sex drive?), to grossly misunderstood attempts to adopt Oriental religions that have no disciplines are popular in our own day.  People want the greater meaning. . . as long as it doesn't have meaning. . . or perhaps if it doesn't seem too hard.

Well, fasting is hard, particularly if it has a purpose, and that purpose isn't focused exclusively on you.

Which is one of the reasons that the Western World here ought to take a look at the East.

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*FWIW, the word "Advent" comes from the Latin, "to arrive".  It celebrates the arrival of Christ.

**Christ's Mass is known to have been celebrated extremely early on in Church history, I believe as early as the 1st Century.  Moreover, contrary what later day basement Internet dwellers and Naive Reddit Rubes may have some believe, it's not only not placed on top of a preexisting pagan holiday, it's known to have actually been celebrated in December early on and, moreover, prior to the Roman establishment of the most commonly claimed pagan candidate, Sol Invictus.  That's right, pagan Romans, probably simply coincidentally, placed their holiday on top of what was already a Christian feast day.

***Oh I know you are already saying "whoa there bucko. . . I know a thing or two about you Catholics and your Priest don't marry". Well not so fast buckwheat.  That's only true in the Latin Rite, and not fully true even in it.

Eastern Rite priests can and usually are married if they're parish priests.  And in the Latin Rite there are married priests who have come in typically from Protestant churches where the priest was formerly a cleric of a Protestant church that has a similar and close understanding of theological matters to the Catholic Church.  It isn't a matter of theology that keeps Latin Rite priest from being generally married, but rather a law of the Latin Rite was originally designed to prevent there from being an aristocratic inherited priesthood.

****And this definitely isn't intended to be a history of schism, so we'll only briefly touch on that here.

As noted, all of the Churches discusses here are Apostolic Churches. That is, they were directly founded by the Apostles.  They were, and they all acknowledge that they were, at one time one single church but historical events separated them and a schism developed.  That is, they have disagreements and the Eastern Orthodox and the Oriental Orthodox are not in communion with the Catholic Church.  I don't know if the Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox are in communion with each other.  There is currently a major dispute going on with the Eastern Patriarch in Turkey, who is generally regarded as the most important Patriarch in the Eastern Orthodox community, and the Russian Orthodox Church, which has caused the Russian Orthodox to take itself out of communion with the Greek Orthodox Church and hence a schism has recently developed there.

Schism or not, all of these churches are highly related and are largely in agreement on most things. They all adhere to the doctrine of Apostolic Succession and they all view each other as having fully valid holy orders and sacraments.  While it might surprise an American who walked into the door of one of the various Orthodox Churches to learn it, they are much closer to each other than they are to any of the Protestant churches.

December 3, 1918: Americans in Germany, Wilson to Europe, Women out the workplace door.

Col Charles Howland and staff, Germany, December 3, 1918.  Note the Chaplain, far left.  Note also that some of these officers have gone to the new pattern of overseas cap that was already replacing the French patter.  It looked better, but was actually less functional.  But that pattern of cap is pretty dysfunctional any way you look at it.  Howland and an officer next to him are wearing trench coats.  This was a design that was a product of the Great War and was a British item.  The U.S. would come to adopt trench coats, but I don't think they had at this point.  The officer on the far right is wearing a shearling lined winter coat which definitely was not a uniform item but which was pretty common for American officers in World War One.

12th Division at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, December 3, 1918.  Part of the National Army, it wold be demobilized by the end of January 1919.  This is an odd unit in that it was partially made up of Regular Army troops who formed part of its cadre, demonstrating an odd aspect of the U.S. Army during World War One.  No American division was made up entirely of Regular Army soldiers and at no point did the entire pre war Regular Army rank and file end up serving in Europe in spite of the massive American commitment to the war.  Some of the troops in this unit would have been in it nearly the entire war, training to go overseas, and never make it.  Some had likely just joined the unit through late conscription.

The news of the day was pretty typical for the immediate post war.  One item to note, however. Strikers employed by a railway in Ohio were demanding that the railway fire its women employees.  Chances are that the women were wartime hires and the men wanted them to go, now that the war was over, and their conscripted colleges would be returning.  The railway apparently had ignored a prior promise to let them go.

And Wilson's troubles with some members of Congress were becoming more and more evident.