{"id":58313,"date":"2015-02-18T11:21:02","date_gmt":"2015-02-18T16:21:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=58313"},"modified":"2015-02-18T11:21:02","modified_gmt":"2015-02-18T16:21:02","slug":"the-belgian-godfathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=58313","title":{"rendered":"The Belgian &#8220;godfathers&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><center><a href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?attachment_id=58314\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-58314\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Didier-Dradon-300x157.png\" alt=\"Didier Dradon\" width=\"300\" height=\"157\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-58314\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Didier-Dradon-300x157.png 300w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Didier-Dradon-500x262.png 500w, https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/02\/Didier-Dradon.png 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/center><\/p>\n<p>Marine_7002 sends us another link to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.monroenews.com\/news\/2015\/feb\/16\/belgian-godfather-cares-monroe-world-war-ii-fighte\/\">a nice story<\/a> about the &#8220;godparents&#8221; of US casualties buried in Belgium. They&#8217;ve taken it upon themselves to &#8220;adopt&#8221; the grave sites of fallen troops;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Lt. Soleau [whose Mustang crashed into a farm field 70 years ago this month]\u2019s remains were interred in the Ardennes American Cemetery and Memorial in Leige, Belgium, where many victims of the Battle of the Bulge were laid to rest. Today, seven decades later, his gravesite is tended to by Didier Dradon, a Belgian man who felt it was his duty to look after American graves. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe owe them that much for what they did for us during World War II,\u201d Mr. Dradon said in French in an e-mail sent to The Monroe News. \u201cWe honor them by visiting the grave several times a year and placing flowers there each time \u2026 in order to never forget the sacrifice of these soldiers for our freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>Soleau\u2019s sister, Theresa Balk, said she was pleased that members of a European community care enough to watch over her brother\u2019s gravesite. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s wonderful,\u201d said Mrs. Balk, who will turn 97 soon. \u201cIt\u2019s very, very satisfying.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Marine_7002 sends us another link to a nice story about the &#8220;godparents&#8221; of US casualties buried &hellip; <a title=\"The Belgian &#8220;godfathers&#8221;\" class=\"hm-read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=58313\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Belgian &#8220;godfathers&#8221;<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58314,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=58313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/58314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=58313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=58313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=58313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}