Loading ...Later in life I spent several years in Europe ( France and Belgium ) where I would regularly visit different Allied war cemeteries . So many of the crosses were inscribed ‘Known Only to God’ , and so many were so young . I remember one grave of a boy of 15 . After his death it was discovered that he had used his brother’s ID to enlist and was killed in battle before his sixteenth birthday .
What really upset me at the time were a few French politicians who wanted the Allied war cemeteries closed , and the bodies removed from France . There is gratitude , for you ! NOT .
On a visit to Paris , we were at the Arc de Triomphe , where there is an eternal flame burning to honor the war dead . My youngest daughter ( three or four years old ) stepped closer to see what it was , and in doing so , invaded the ‘sanctity’ of the memorial . A French cop on duty there made a big issue of it until I told him that my daughter’s great-great-uncle was buried in a war grave near Vimy Ridge , and that he should be thanking my daughter for the sacrifice of her distant relative so that he was not speaking German . That stopped the tirade.
I am most grateful to those who served under George Washington against tremendous odds to gain America’s independence , and those who have served since , to maintain the freedoms which remain .