The One with the Luxembourg American Cemetery & Memorial

While researching our trip to Luxembourg Chris saw that there was an American military cemetery there and since we would be visiting over Memorial Day weekend we decided that was a perfect way to start our visit to the little country of Luxembourg.

There is a small visitor's center just inside the entrance with information about the cemetery.

Straight ahead was the impressive memorial chapel encompassed by a stone terrace. The chapel includes massive bronze doors embellished with gold leaf cartouches depicting military virtues.

On the lower level of the terrace, two pylons face each other across a quote by General Dwight Eisenhower about the sacrifice of military members. The pylons display the battle movements in the Western European Operations and those related to the Battle of the Bulge (below).

The pylon showing broader European operations during World War II.

On the reverse of the maps 371 names of those missing in action are inscribed.

If you look closely on these images you can see 12 bronze rosettes that identify men who have been recovered since the inscriptions were made and now rest in known graves where their family and loved ones can visit them. Another view of the chapel. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day with birds chirping.

At the head of the cemetery lies one grave, that of General George S. Patton, commander of the U.S. Third Army. He died while still stationed in Germany after the war had ended and was buried here among many of his fallen soldiers.

Flowers out and ready to be placed at the foot of each headstone.

The cemetery consists of 17 acres of manicured lawn surrounded by 33.5 acres of woodland. Sloping down and away from the terrace with the chapel is the final resting place of 5,076 servicemen. Many of these soldiers were killed during the Battle of the Bulge and in the advance to the Rhine River.

The design is a softly curving fan shape consisting of nine sections interspersed with four fountains, trees, and rose and rhododendron beds. It is a fittingly tranquil final resting place for these Americans who gave their all in the defense of freedom. The cemetery was established on December 29, 1944 by the 609th Quartermaster Company of Patton's Third Army while Allied Forces were stemming the enemy's desperate Ardennes Offensive, one of the critical battles of World War II. During this time the city of Luxembourg served as headquarters for Gen. Patton's army. There were a lot of Americans from the military community in Kaiserslautern decorating the graves for Memorial Day. A lot of them were part of a Cub Scout troop from "K-town," as it's known to us American expats over here.

I loved that even all these years later, there are still people who remember and commemorate these soldiers. God bless America.

So humbling to walk through and realize every single one of these brave men had a life and a story and a mom and dad who loved them and grieved the loss of their son. Each headstone has a name, a rank, a date of death - many of them died on Christmas. So thankful for all of them and their ultimate sacrifice.

Headstones as far as we could see. It makes me glad that at least they have such a beautiful, peaceful place to rest.  Fox was so good and helped place roses in front of several of the headstones.

Then Chris helped Jane place one, too.

Many groups and organizations had left roses to honor these fallen heroes.

We stopped by the chapel on our way out. They were setting up for some sort of commemoration that would take place on Monday.

The ceiling of the chapel was a gorgeous mosaic.

Our family at the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial on Saturday May 23rd 2015.

If you are ever near Luxembourg City we highly recommend that you visit this poignant and touching memorial to over 5000 brave men.