MEMORIAL SERVICES AT U.S. MILITARY CEMETERIES IN BELGIUM
                          MAY  27TH AND MAY 28TH

 

Warfare and its echoes of military gunfire have been absent from Belgium
for more than six decades, but more than 14,000 American soldiers and
aircrew are present forever in Belgium as reminders of the liberty and
prosperity enjoyed by so many today.

Public ceremonies honoring  the American dead of World War II will be held
on Saturday May 27th at the Ardennes Military Cemetery, just south of
Liege, at 10H00 and at 16H00 at the Henri-Chapelle Military Cemetery,
Aubel, north of Liege.  The World War I American dead will be honored on
Sunday May 28th at 15H00 in the Flanders Field Cemetery, Waregem.  All
visitors are welcome.

Highway directions are on the web at www.aomda.org and http://www.abmc.gov .

A U.S. Air Force flyby of four fighter jets in the Missing Man formation is
on the agenda for all three events, operational commitments permitting.
American and Belgian army units will provide flag bearers, honor guard, a
military band, and a bugler to sound Taps. The Honorable Tom Korologos,
U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium is scheduled to deliver a brief
tribute.

The all-volunteer American Overseas Memorial Day Association [AOMDA] is
comprised of both Americans and Belgians. It depends on public support to
organize the events in cooperation with the American Embassy. Send check or
MO to address below or make transfers to ING bank account 310-1202144-12.
(International transfers: IBAN: BE 19310120214412 BIC: BBRUBEBB)

SNAFU is American slang for screw-up. It began as a soldiers’ acronym in World War II for “Situation Normal; All Fouled Up.”
And that, as it happens, is the polite version.

But a proud granite obelisk on the Belgian-Luxembourg border today honors the courage of the U.S. Army’s self-named “Team Snafu.”
Its soldiers are remembered for helping liberate Belgium 60 years ago this year.

With typical U.S. Army humor, cooks, clerks, drivers and other non-combatants called themselves Team Snafu when they were hastily
thrown together into a Combat Command of the 9th U.S. Armored Division during the desperate days of the Battle of the Bulge.
Team Snafu stayed together from December 1944 to the end of the war the following May. It was just one of hundreds of American units
in General George Patton’s famed Third U.S. Army whose warpath liberated Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and Czechoslovakia
from Nazi terror.

The missing and dead of Team Snafu will be among those honored this year at American military cemeteries in Belgium on
Memorial Day weekend. The dramatic and poignant public ceremonies will be held on Saturday, May 27 at 10am at the Ardennes
Cemetery and at 4pm at the Henri-Chapelle Cemetery, both World War II resting places near Liège, and on Sunday, May 28 at 3pm
at Flanders Field, a World War I cemetery in West Flanders. These events are organized by the American Overseas Memorial Day Association
(AOMDA), a volunteer group of Americans and Belgians, and the American embassy.

After more than six decades since the Battle of the Bulge and the final liberation of Europe, the ceremonies will be especially moving.
Belgians and Americans, together with aging veterans, will honor the still-fresh memories of the 14,000 American servicemen and
women who fell during World War II and remain buried here, a long way from home.

Another 368 U.S. soldiers are buried at Flanders Field, the smallest American World War I cemetery in Europe, and the only one in Belgium.
It holds remains of military personnel who died during the final days of the First World War, in an earlier drive to liberate Belgium in 1918.

One of the most dramatic events during the annual ceremonies is the “Missing Man” fly-by formation performed by four U.S. Air Force jets.
Watch for one fighter peeling off over the cemetery and lifting toward the heavens before rejoining the formation. Another special event at
every Memorial Day ceremony takes place at the Flanders Field cemetery. Following a tradition that began in 1919, local Belgian school
children sing the American national anthem and place flags on the graves of the fallen soldiers.

Americans, Belgians, overseas visitors and citizens of all nations are invited to attend the free, open Memorial Day ceremonies during
the weekend of May 27 and 28. The non-profit AOMDA depends on volunteer contributions in order to conduct these ceremonies and
to honor our fallen heroes properly. Please send contributions in any size to AOMDA, Rue du Tabellion 66, 1050 Brussels.

And, finally, when you attend the ceremonies, listen carefully. You just may be able to hear the ghostly echoes around the graves of
what General Douglas MacArthur once called “The strange mournful mutter of the battlefield.”