Saint Avold

Our field trip was a doubleheader.  Not only were we bound for Hackenberg, but we intended on traveling to St. Avold.  Due to some unforeseen socializing and gouter consuming time with our friends Rocky & Maria, we missed the afternoon bus to our second destination.  Alas, all was not lost.  They have a car so Kyle, Maria, and I set out for America (or the closest thing to it here).  Rocky was detained with some work so we bid him farewell for just a bit.  

The Lorraine American Cemetery and Memorial holds the most graves of Americans who served in WWII in all of Europe; we definitely didn't expect to find it in our little Moselle region.  It's a beautiful place and it really feels like America.  I don't know how to describe it, but it made me so proud of my country.  The amount of sacrifice these soldiers made to promote liberty and freedom is overwhelming.  Upon reading there names and where they came from, I kept trying to imagine the soldiers as small children never imagining that their bodies' final resting place would be in a very small town by a very small river in France.  So many men so far from the homes they were fighting for... 

Ultimately, it makes me very frustrated with my public education.  We may be taught about significant battles and strategies in wars (Gettysburg, storming the beach at Normandy, the Tet Offensive, and the surge in Iraq to name a few), but there was never any emphasis on the principals for which our countrymen fought.  As my dear friend Paul says, "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die."  Similarly, I don't believe so many Americans would give their life to fleeting or unimportant values.  I'm not going to get on a soapbox about them, but it's definitely worth looking into.  For now, enjoy the beauty of the American military laid in serene and eternal repose.

A belated Memorial day & Flag day rolled into one for us.

Our missing men

Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then will I be confident.  One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.

The only Georgian I encountered.

A brief story on the only soldier we saw with a gold star~

On November 16th, 1944, Staff Sergeant Ruben Rivers' tank hit a mine and shrapnel cut his leg from knee to thigh very deeply. His commanding officer, Captain David J. Williams, later remembered what happened when he and the rest of the company came to aid Rivers:

    With the morphine needle in my right hand about a half inch from Sergeant Rivers' leg, I could have told my sergeant to hold him down. I said, “Ruben, you're going back. You've got a million-dollar wound. You're going back to Tecumseh [Oklahoma]. You're getting out of this. You got a Silver Star and a Purple Heart.” He says, “Captain, you're going to need me.” I said, “I'm giving you a direct order! You're going back!” I said, "Medics, get the stretcher.” He pushed the needle away and got up. He said, “This is one order, the only order I'll ever disobey.”

Three days later, they come under heavy fire from the Germans by the town of Bougaltroff.  Williams ordered his men to withdraw, but Rivers held his position firing at an anti-tank unit to cover the area for his countrymen's retreat.  His tank was hit by two shells and he was killed.  Turns out Williams did need him.

My sweet husband and me