The curator of the cemetery told us many interesting things, including how they are able even today to identify unknown World War I soldiers, how many records they are able to access now on the internet to consolidate information, and how almost 20% of the soldiers were immigrants. He also told us that July 4th was declared a national French holiday in the year 1918 in gratitude to the American troops during the war.
After the cemetery, we went around to Belleau Wood, now known as the "Bois de la Brigade de la Marine." We saw the cannons and memorial there, as well as the trenches and bomb craters that are still apparent today.
Tristan and Benjamin helpfully explained the diagrams to us. ("Those are train tracks!")
After lunch in the woods, during which we fed the mosquitos, too, we headed back to the German cemetery we had seen on our way in.
From there we continued on to the newly opened WWI museum in Belleau, where we also saw the "Devil Dog" Fountain that the Marines adopted as their own when they discovered it in the village of Belleau.
Benjamin and Isabel especially appreciated the gravel.
And Noah has become much friendlier - he won't go see anyone else and clings for dear life to me or Frederic when other people are around, but he does laugh and smile at them now instead of screaming. It's an improvement!
We came home after our outing to have a 4th of July barbecue and fireworks - sadly, the quality of the fireworks left much to be desired, but the company more than made up for it.
1 comment:
It's about time for your Mom and I to have lunch and get caught up on things. Do I need to come there to do it? I don't mind and you could join us. That would be lots of fun. One problem though. You have done so much sight seeing already you wouldn't want to show me around.
Debbie Davis
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