The American Battle Monuments Commission was established in 1923, following World War I. The Commission worked with family members to bury soldiers overseas in cemeteries constructed and maintained to honor those killed or missing in war. 100 years later, ABMC takes care of 26 cemeteries and 32 memorials around the world. Those honor more than 200,000 soldiers from the two World Wars, the Korean War and Vietnam.
"It's our duty, it's our mission to make sure that our country doesn't forget, that the world doesn't forget what America has done," American Battle Monuments Commission Secretary Charles Djou said.
Families could decide to have their loved ones buried overseas or they could have the bodies returned for burial in the United States. The option ended during the Korean War but many visit the cemeteries overseas every year.
"This site in Margraten, in the Netherlands, it's one of our most visited sites, probably behind our site at Normandy, the D-Day landing fields and Manila," Djou said.
A new Visitor’s Center at the Netherlands American Cemetery is expected to bring in even more people who want to honor those lives lost. It’s the 10th Visitor’s Center at ABMC cites.
"In the first few decades after the Second World War, we had veterans, we had the widows, we had the mothers of our service members who could tell the stories of what happened there," Djou said. "But now, as we get a little bit further in time, we are opening visitor centers, museums that can tell the stories because so many of our veterans and the widows and mothers have moved on."
The site features original artifacts and personal narratives from battles that took place nearby, including Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge.
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"This particular area changed hand five times," Djou said. "Finally, of course, the United States and our allies were victorious."
The site honors nearly 10,000 U.S. soldiers who died or went missing nearby. It also is one of the only overseas cemeteries that honors Americans from every single state.
"Not only do we have Americans from all of our states, the Dutch people adopted every single one of the American service members who fell in the Second World War and still to this day continue to take care of the gravesites," Djou said.
The Dutch people often visit the cemetery with flowers. They also spend time researching the lives of service members buried there.
"These communities, particularly in the Netherlands, remember what America sacrificed for freedom and for democracy," Djou said. "This is a story that sometimes, though, I think more Americans need to hear."
