Robert M. Edsel

Only one agenda should govern our nation’s twenty-six overseas military cemeteries, where more than 200,000 Americans lay in rest: how best to honor and remember the men and women who lost their lives for our freedom.

Today, I find myself thinking about gratitude. In 1944, Christmas cards like the one below were created for residents living in the newly liberated areas of the Netherlands. Families who had taken American soldiers into their homes sent these cards to the young men who had returned to the front lines, many facing an uncertain future.

Through the tireless research from an interested and determined person I now call a friend, Ditta Strijbos, we learned that the two children in the photo were five-year-old Francien E. Paes and seven-year-old Jan H. Nillesen. On that day, the children were playing in front of Francien’s home at Rijksweg C111 (later renumbered Rijksweg 80) in Malden, in the municipality of Heumen, the Netherlands. Jan was Francien’s next-door neighbor.