[Semaphore Heathcliffe]

GenX bump. I spent what was then the better part of my net worth a few years back taking an indefinite time touring WWII sites in Europe. No real plan at first, other than to get the hell away from the desk and see something substantial. One leg of my trip was a drive from Liege to Bastogne and Malmedy (Baugnez) on down to Luxembourg. Saw most of the memorials you've listed. I chose to go in the dead of winter, when there was snow on the ground and no other travellers around. Hard to get a grasp of what was going on over there back then, until you see town after town expressing their gratitude with an American memorial on the highway. It is as if small-town Europeans are expressing more appreciation for the USA than even we do in our own country.

The cemeteries over there are especially sobering. You're looking at a sea of crosses and stars, names and home states...Texas, Alabama, Wyoming...all represented on snow-covered fields an ocean away from home. And the ocean was a hell of a lot bigger then. "This marker is final resting place of twenty men, Known but to God." A long, one-way trip from Nebraska, Minnesota, Louisiana. The Walls of the Missing - hundreds of names that quiety serve notice of infantry, armor, air crew, sailors simply vanished into foreign air, under foreign soil and waves.

[SAMWolf]

I went through in the summer and it is amaziong the number of memorials to the Americans in the towns.

Most are well maintained by the locals. I guess small towns are the same world wide, the Socialists and the Liberals seem to gravitate to the big cities, but the samall towns keep a country's heritage and history alive.