On 11 November 2013, Veterans’ Day, I had the pleasure of meeting a French colleague at the Epinal American Cemetery for the Veterans’ Day ceremony held there. I was very pleased to see that the event drew a good sized crowd of French citizens commemorating the sacrifice that the men buried there had made. Naturally, I took a number of photos, and those are accessible on flickr at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/68315281@N03/sets/72157637756816406/
Following the ceremony at Epinal, and following some wandering through the headstones reading the names of the fallen, we continued on to Grandvillers for the ceremonial unveiling of a plaque honoring the men of the US 179th Infantry Regiment who gave their lives to liberate the town in September and October of 1944. The plaque occupies a place of honor at the base of the town’s monument to its military and civilian fallen from the First and Second World Wars. French reenactors from a group from the Marne region wearing US uniforms from WWII, most of them with US 3rd Infantry Division shoulder patches, mounted the color guard for the US colors. The US Consul General in Strasbourg joined the town’s mayor and regional deputy commissioner in placing wreaths below the plaque. Local schoolchildren also placed wreaths. The crowd itself was made up by citizens of all ages, and it warmed my heart to see how many had come out to take part in the event. Again, I took some photos,and they can be found at:
After the ceremony, the community invited my colleague and me to a sumptuous lunch. Unfortunately, because I had a three-hour drive home ahead of me and my colleague a two-hour drive, so we left the lunch after the fourth of nine courses and headed out to the woods east of Fremifontaine with our local colleague. In the woods east of Fremifontaine stands a monument erected in honor of the over 100 soldiers of the US 45th Infantry Division who died fighting in the woods near there. It was to late in the day to get a guided tour of the battle area, so we’ve put that on our To Do lists and will go back again some time in the not-too-distant future. Of course, I also took photos of the monument in Fremifontaine, and those photos are here: