Posted on 10/13/2009 7:34:52 PM PDT by nuconvert
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A world away from Afghanistan, over in Holland, was approaching the 65th anniversary of the allied liberation from Nazi occupation, and I had been invited to attend by James Maggie Megellas. Maggie, who had fought his way through Holland and is today remembered there as a hero, is said to be the most decorated officer in the history of the 82nd Airborne Division. Now 92, Maggie has recently spent about two months tooling around the battlefields of Afghanistan, and though it would be an honor to finally meet him, there was the matter of extracting myself from Kandahar City and getting through about forty minutes of dangerous territory to the military base at Kandahar Airfield
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Next morning wethe veterans and university students who were traveling with themloaded into a bus and drove to Margraten Cemetery, the only U.S. military resting place in the Netherlands. Margraten was immaculate and huge and the Dutch people were treating our veterans extremely well, and some were saying Thank you for liberating us. (Over the next days, this must have been repeated thousands of times.)
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We walked out to the graves where 8,301 Americans are at rest. Several Dutch would say that every single grave has been adopted by a Dutch family and they put flowers on the headstones at special times.
(Excerpt) Read more at michaelyon-online.com ...
bttt
I loved “Moment of Truth in Iraq,” and Anoreth conceived quite an admiration for the gentleman.
Wonderful photos of the anniversary of Market Garden.
In 1983 was in that area of the Nederlands in Arnhem
Also seeing General Petraeus there with the Dutch and the
American Vets was probably extra special since Gen. Petraeus’s father is from the Netherlands.
92 years old and touring Afghanistan? Holy $**+. Wish I was made of that kind of stuff.
Thanks for posting this link. I don’t have time to read it all tonight, so I’m bookmarking for tomorrow.
amazing!
Thank you very much.
Yon is a hero.
Pray for America and Michael Yon
Heart Tugging - This is what our troops were and are made of.
Thanks to the WW11 troops, we are still speaking English, not German or Japanese.
Wow!
It featured Sean Connery, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, and Robert Redford...
I did read the book as well...
The operation was a military blunder...It was Monty's idea...Ike didn't veto the idea...
He could have done with a little more history. On page 2, “During the ensuing battles, Americans, British and others, with help from the Dutch underground, routed the Nazis from Holland.”
The Nazis were ‘routed’ from Holland when the war ended in May, 1945. (Arnhem itself was liberated a couple of weeks earlier, in mid-April 1945).
But all in all, an inspiring thread.
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