Officials fell trees inscribed by US soldiers who fought for France (WWII GI Memorial)

The Times (London) ^ | June 13, 2008 | Adam Sage

[republicanequestrian]

“It is a typically French failing to wipe out the traces of the past,”

I stopped reading there, in disbelief that a French person would say that. ;)

[blam]

Sad. But, it’s their loss.

[PeterFinn]

Typical of the French. Can’t wait for them to build condos on the war graves at Normandy.

[Unknowing]

In memory of this heinous act, I shall eliminate from the world six bottles of fine French appellation using a toilet. So there.

[NutCrackerBoy]

The soldiers left broken hearts, peach stones - which were planted to give the region its first peach trees - and their graffiti. -Adam Sage

I imagine they made a few contributions to the local gene pool.

[Leo Farnsworth]

“Blundering Americans?”

“I was with the Americans when they ‘blundered’ into Berlin in 1918.”

- Capt. Louis Renault (Claude Rains)speaking to Major Strasser in Casablanca.

We all owe a great debt to those men who carved their names on those trees.

[SF Republican]

10 years ago I was in France on my honeymoon with my bride and we visited some of her friends in Normandy. They took us to the farm of one of their friends that was used as a HQ just a few days after D Day. They housed German POWs in the barn which still had German and US soldier graffiti on the timbers.

[SF Republican]

I shall eliminate from the world six bottles of fine French appellation - I was with you up until using a toilet.

[Czar]

What else would we expect. After all, it’s the surrender monkeys we’re talking about here.

[Sola Veritas]

Cheese eating surrender monkeys.

[Redcloak]

I imagine they made a few contributions to the local gene pool.

Not enough, it would seem.

[donna]

Beech tree has a typical lifespan of 150 to 200 years, though sometimes up to 300 years.

They were going to go some day.

[DeaconBenjamin]

American Graffiti

[Oatka]

Too bad Mr Navarro didn't contact some U.S. veterans organizations. I'll bet they would have paid more for the tree trunks than he got from the paper mill.

Someone, somewhere could have cut out the sections that had the names and preserved them, perhaps at the WWII memorial near New Orleans. What a kick for the kids of those veterans to be able to point to a name and say, "THAT's MY DAD!"

[PLMerite]

You can’t save everything.

[thundrey]

But you still bought the wine first, right?

[TLI]

[printhead]

A most amazing thing just occurred. While I started reading this article I could hear ever so faintly the Star Spangled Banner. I even looked away from the screen, I could still her it. Coincidence?

[GAB-1955]

If you had to avoid building on battlefield grave sites in France, you’d have only ten square meters of room somewhere near Bordeaux. France is an old country.