Sacrifice cannot be forgotten
Maintaining funding of overseas memorials for fallen must be priority
As Washington’s political heavyweights battle over the debt ceiling, let’s hope one spending area left alone is the memory of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Even more so since we’re entering the Memorial Day weekend.
President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy have less than a fortnight to strike a budget compromise and raise the nation’s borrowing limit in order to avert a federal default. Certainly, spending can be chopped, but one area where it should be increased is to support the century-old American Battle Monuments Commission.
Without an agreement on the nation’s current $31 trillion debt limit, the U.S. could start running short of cash on June 1 to cover its debts. Veterans benefits and military pay would be affected, as would Social Security payments to pensioners; Medicare and Medicaid payments; federal salaries; and SNAP benefits.
At the heart of this annual debt-ceiling dance is Republicans insisting next year’s spending cannot be more than current 2023 levels. Democrats refuse to accept sharp cuts sought by the GOP, seeking to hold spending flat. The U.S. has never defaulted on its debt.
Whatever happens over the coming days with the debtlimit debate, Illinois congressional lawmakers need to make certain funding is increased for the American Battle Monuments Commission. A federal agency, part of the executive branch, the ABMC was established by Congress in 1923. It ensures the legacy of the fallen are remembered at commemorative cemeteries and memorials across Europe and beyond.
Monday, Memorial Day, is when we honor the service, achievements and sacrifice of members of our armed forces who died defending American ideals, from the Civil War to Afghanistan. As Gen. John J. Pershing, who led the American Expeditionary Force to France in World War l, said of our war dead: “Time will not dim the glory of their deeds.” And it shouldn’t.
Besides our veterans’ cemeteries scattered across the U.S., including Fort Sheridan in Lake County and Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Elwood in Will County, more than 125,000 American war dead are interred at overseas locations. The ABMC administers, operates and maintains them.
Those include 26 permanent American military cemeteries and 32 federal memorials, monuments and markers, which are located in 17 foreign countries on five continents, showing the breadth of service and sacrifice of U.S. troops over the decades. The first overseas cemeteries and monuments were acquired in France during the 1930s following World War I, with the most, nine, located in the country, which was America’s first ally during the American Revolution.
The agency says 207,621 U.S. war dead from World War I and II are honored at the sites, including 30,973 burials from World War I and 92,958 from World War II. The names of 8,209 soldiers, sailors and Marines listed as missing from the Korean War, and 2,504 from the Vietnam War are memorialized at the ABMC Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii.
The agency’s most-visited sites are Normandy American Cemetery and the Pointe du Hoc Ranger Monument at Colleville-sur-Mer, France, where some three million visitors make pilgrimages annually. They mark the final resting places for those who died during the D-Day invasion of June 6, 1944.
In the first 24 hours of the invasion, 1,465 Americans were killed, 3,184 wounded,
1,928 listed as missing and 26 captured by the Nazis, according to official records. Those numbers soared as American troops broke out of the beachhead and journeyed inland against stiff German resistance.
According to the American Legion, Dutch citizens have adopted and care for the graves adorned with the white crosses of 8,000 Americans at the Netherlands American Cemetery in the nation’s southeast. Established in 1960, it is the third-largest war cemetery for unidentified GIs.
Other lesser-known sites include Cambridge American Cemetery on a hillside outside of Cambridge in England, North Africa American Cemetery near Carthage, Tunisia and Clark Veterans Cemetery and Manila American Cemetery, both in the Philippines. U.S. memorials also are in the U.S. Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands and the British dependency of Gibraltar.
The agency also administers the Mexico City National Cemetery and Corozal American Cemetery in Panama.
The most recent acquisition by the ABMC was in 2017 with the Lafayette Escadrille Memorial Cemetery near Paris honoring 49 U.S. volunteer flyers and their French officers during the early days of World War I.
As our national leaders pare down U.S. spending, they need to keep the final resting places for Americans who died honoring U.S. ideals far from home chief among agencies which need more funding.