From: r_s_schaafsma@eudora

I've visit last week the American cemetry and memorial in the Netherlands
(Margraten). Here rest 8300 heroes. It's a horrible reminder for anyone to
intensify the close ties between Europe and the US.

Some vets visited the local high school yesterday to tell their stories. One
fellow had been a PT boat captain. He told stories that held the audience in
rapt attention. He had won the Navy Cross, although he didn't mention it.
This fellow was a Dutchman, a young kid at sea working on a fishing boat when
the nazis conquered Holland. He made his way to America, enlisted in the Navy
and served in New Guinea and the Philippines on his 80-foot wooden boat,
engaging in countless battles, what he called shootouts at the OK Corral and
twenties at twenty--20mm at 20 yards--against supply barges and gunboats,
landing Marine raiding parties, dueling shore batteries, rescuing downed
airmen, making torpedo runs on jap battleship lines. When he told how his
battle-scared PT boat ended---days after the war ended it was unceremoniously
towed out to sea, set afire and sunk--there was not a dry eye among the teens
in the audience. Then he ended saying, paraphrasing as i remember it: "I was
born a Dutchman and I love my native land forever, but I am also an American
and I would, even today, old man that I am, gladly die for this country...for
many reasons...but one of these reasons is that I know that you young people
listening to me today would, without the slightest hesitation, die to save
Holland. The Dutch know that when we need you--and the day will come again
when we do--you will come. We have not the slightest doubt."

In the Q&A after the presentations he talked a lot about the ties that bind
Europe and America and that the political spats that always cloud the
relationship are superficial and inconsequential, like relatives squabbling at
the dinner table.


Chris Mark