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A European lurker of an American blog sent this along from the Luxembourg American Cemetary

So, a bit of news, if you haven’t heard, The Brexit Party got over 30% of the vote in the European Parliament election, if we combine that with UKIP (which seems reasonable) it is about 35% as I read the chart at Guido’s. And so the Revolution continues. Good.

Today for us Americans is Memorial Day. Before the Great War, it was Decoration Day, the day when we decorated the graves of our war dead from the Civil War. It should be noted that our war dead from the Revolution until sometime in Vietnam, did not equal the casualty count from the Civil War, some 600,000 men out of a population of 31.4 million including some 3 million slaves. No wonder Colonel Butterfield wrote perhaps the most famous piece of American music.

And so about 1898, our soldiers became what Robert Leckie called “Planetary Soldiers” and in 1917 we debuted on the world stage, after we were recalled in 1941, we’ve found that we must stay, even if reluctantly. Any Briton who reads his history fairly will understand all too well.

And so this weekend, we, and those we have liberated will gather to remember the liberation by American soldiers. We will no doubt speak of this more around the time of the 75th anniversary of D Day (for the British the only amphibious landing larger than the one in New York in 1776).

I wrote this morning including the words of a British nurse as she watched her first American soldiers marching to the front in 1918. It is here, but perhaps here we should hear from The Girl Who Wore Freedom.

We sometime look around and wonder whether our war dead would approve and consider their lives well spent, and I know many Britons do as well. Well, all we can really do is ask the people we liberated. It seems many of them are again on the way to throwing away their liberty (as are some of our people) but we can liberate but we cannot keep people free, that they have to do for themselves, as we Americans, British, Australians, New Zealanders, and Canadians  have, so far, done.

Today on the only ground the United States owns around the world, we will celebrate that such men (and women) lived. Here is the list.

Ceremony Location Country Date
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Ardennes American Cemetery Ardennes American Cemetery Belgium
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Luxembourg American Cemetery Luxembourg American Cemetery Luxembourg May 25, 2019 at 2 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 at Somme American Cemetery  Somme American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 3 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery Belgium May 25, 2019 at 4 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 at Sicily-Rome American Cemetery Sicily-Rome American Cemetery Italy
Memorial Day 2019 at Manila American Cemetery Manila American Cemetery Philippines May 26, 2019 at 8 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 at Aisne-Marne American Cemetery Aisne-Marne American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 9:45 a.m
Memorial Day 2019 at Lafayette Escadrille Memorial Cemetery Lafayette Escadrille Memorial Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 10 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 at Rhone American Cemetery Rhone American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 10 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Epinal American Cemetery Epinal American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 10:30 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Normandy American Cemetery Normandy American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 10:30 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Lorraine American Cemetery Lorraine American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 11 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 11 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Suresnes American Cemetery Suresnes American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 2:30 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Brookwood American Cemetery Brookwood American Cemetery England May 26, 2019 at 3 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Flanders Field American Cemetery Flanders Field American Cemetery Belgium
Memorial Day 2019 at Netherlands American Cemetery Netherlands American Cemetery Netherlands May 26, 2019 at 3 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 at Oise-Aisne American Cemetery Oise-Aisne American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 3 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Brittany American Cemetery Brittany American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 4 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 at St. Mihiel American Cemetery St. Mihiel American Cemetery France May 26, 2019 at 4 p.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Corozal American Cemetery Corozal American Cemetery Panama
Memorial Day 2019 at North Africa American Cemetery North Africa American Cemetery Tunisia May 27, 2019 at 11 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 at Mexico City National Cemetery Mexico City National Cemetery Mexico May 27, 2019 at 10 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Cambridge American Cemetery Cambridge American Cemetery England May 27, 2019 at 11 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 Ceremony at Florence American Cemetery Florence American Cemetery Italy May 27, 2019 at 11 a.m.
Memorial Day 2019 at Clark Veterans Cemetery Clark Veterans Cemetery Philippines

Sort of funny really, New England was settled largely from East Anglia (and in truth some colonists went home to support Cromwell a few years later, rumor has it that some of the regicides spent the rest of their life fairly openly here). So may it was fitting that when we joined in the Second World War that our Air Force would end up in East Anglia, and it would change us both. At least this looks like the East Anglians have a fair handle on us.