 Good evening. My name is Tom Nastic. I'm Public Programs Manager here at the National Archives. And it's my pleasure to welcome you to the William G. McGowan Theater in Washington, DC for tonight's screening of Our Promise, 100 Years of the American Battle Monuments Commission, with our special guest, Michael G. Conley. And welcome to those of you watching this program on our YouTube channel. To find out more about National Archives Public and educational programs and exhibits, please visit our website at www.archives.gov. Tonight's screening is in partnership with the American Battle Monuments Commission, who are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year. Established by Congress in 1923, the American Battle Monuments Commission commemorates the service, achievements, and sacrifice of the US Armed Forces. ABMC administers 26 overseas military cemeteries and 32 memorials, monuments, and markers. To tell us more about the ABMC and to introduce tonight's film is Mr. Michael Mike Conley. Conley, the Chief of Staff for the American Battle Monuments Commission. He served previously as the Commission's Director of Public Affairs, and before that as Director of Communications and Associate Executive Director of the Commission's National World War II Memorial Project. He has been with the Commission since August 1996, a few months after retiring from the United States Air Force. He served nearly 25 years in the Air Force as a career public affairs officer with assignments in the continental US, Alaska, and Greece. He spent his last five years in the Pentagon. Would you please welcome Mike Conley. Thank you, Tom. And good evening to everyone. It's my pleasure to welcome you to the screening of the documentary, Our Promise, 100 Years of the American Battle Monuments Commission. But before we begin, I want to give a very special thanks to all of the staff here at the National Archives who are hosting us this evening in this beautiful space surrounded by some of our nation's most treasured documents. On March 3 of this year, the eve of our 100th anniversary, the American Battle Monuments Commission premiered this documentary right here at the National Archives. Since then, we have traveled around the country sharing this film and ABMC's timeless mission with audiences at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, the Pritzker Military Museum and Library in Chicago, the USS Midway Museum in San Diego, and the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City. We're honored to be back here this evening for the final screening of Our Promise, 100 Years of the American Battle Monuments Commission. This documentary was intended to be the centerpiece of our centennial commemoration. The creation of the documentary provided us a unique opportunity to look inward as an agency and share with our partners and audiences throughout the world a behind-the-scenes look at the passion of our team and the mission that drives them. We spoke with next of kin, cemetery visitors, and staff alike, and dug deep into our archives to help bring the stories to life of those we commemorate and those who continue to tell those stories. The result is a remarkable encapsulation of the marriage between preservation and progress that is reflected in our centennial commemoration. While the film shares some very powerful stories from our past 100 years, it also looks forward to our next 100 years and the innovative ways we will continue to honor the service and sacrifice of those who gave all and those who fought with them. I hope you find it, as I do, both a beautiful tribute to the men and women whose legacies we are honored to carry forward, but also a reflection of the unbroken promise that our nation made 100 years ago and will continue to fulfill. That time will not dim the glory of their deeds nor their memory. Dad was one guy who enlisted and went to war, became a pilot, and did his job. And that was symbolic of so many other Americans. This beautiful cemetery with the wall of the missing, the beautiful chapel is a place of reflection. They have subsequent generations of people who are looking at their family history and thinking, well, my great-grandfather's buried here, and people still remember him. ABMC is taking care of our ancestor. When people come to our sites, they're learning why this place is important, why these individual stories are important, why we continue to operate the way that we do. You lose that first life on the battlefield. That one person could lose their life a second time when we forget them. There's no greater calling and no more worthy assignment to keep that memory alive. My name is Bruce Malone, and I am the superintendent of the New Zorgan American Cemetery. I do live right here on the site. You get to know the local people. They still tell the stories. These little children being told, this soldier died in our town. My grandfather is buried at Amrishan Pell Cemetery in Belgium. It's a way to give back. The New Zorgan battlefield is one of the most hallowed places. What remains to this day and may it ever be so, the bloodiest battle in American history. Like a lot of World War I battles, this went on for weeks and weeks. It ended with literally the armistice on November 11, 1918. Imagine you're one of those young soldiers, and as you're moving forward, a guy to the right falls. This guy over here falls. You hear a scream behind you, or your lieutenant goes down. You look back to this hillside, and the Army Graves Registration is now burying the buddies that just fell as you came across the hill. You have to be thinking, how long before I end up on that hill? Long before I am over here. Things that happened on this hill were just horrific. But today, under our care, you can hear the birds chirping, the flag waving in the wind, and it's a tranquil, serene sight. It's an honor to be here. But above that, it's a privilege. Very few people get to do what I do. And I am proud of that. So I will do my best at it. Absolutely. I don't want to let these guys down. Because it's a world, you have to be passionate about people who love doing their job, always having a good working quality. It's been a month since I started working, and today I'm working. What would happen if you didn't do it? Very good question. I think I don't know. I have never had the opportunity, we have never had the opportunity to let the birds not fly for a year. But having to move forward, it's to make the work move forward, that this bird remains correct and clean. Headstones are marble. Marble, like a lot of other stones will wear. They will crack. They will absorb things from the ground that will discolor them, and the engravings themselves will wear out. So from time to time, we have to replace headstones. But headstones can probably last 70 years on the elements before it's no longer up to our standards. My name is Adrien Raymond. I'm a robot operator on the Musargon site. My job consists of the steel engravings. The essence of our work is still the sculptures of the soldiers, whether it's Musargon or the other sites. When I arrived, I understood, especially when I saw the engraving, that there was a need for perfection, to work well done. I'm like Pierre de Monttravail, and for the BNC, for the United States. I'm going to be careful to do the best possible job to make it as perfect as it should be. The headstones lie in perfect rows, the positioning of the burials has nothing to do with rank of the individual soldiers, race, creed. For the World War I era, particularly, when the army was rigidly segregated, this was a very progressive idea. I think that reflects a philosophy there's a kind of democracy of death. In death, they're all almost immediately after the First World War stopped in 1918. The Graves Registration Service, the GRS, got about the work of collecting bodies. And by that point, they were scattered in literally thousands of different grave sites. A lot of the work was done by African-American soldiers and very grim, very grim labor. The decision was made that repatriating 75,000 bodies might be a little bit too much for the resources of the government, then at hand. More departments sent out ballots to give the individual families the choice. 45,000 of those 75,000 bodies went home. A little bit less than 30,000 of them were to stay in what turned out to be eight permanent cemeteries maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission. This soldier is the reason we're here. It's that simple. Pick one. We have the trees, the fountain, the grass and all, but it's all about this soldier. There were six children all together. William was the oldest and my grandmother was the next oldest. She was pretty close to William. He was killed in 1918. Fighting in the Musargon, our great grandparents were asked, do you want William remains to come home to Minnesota? My great grandparents said, no, the remains can stay in France. And so the A, B, M, C cemetery was a place of closure. A lot of questions saying, you know, you got to bring the remains home. Yeah, you know, they're coming home. That was always the thing, you know, it was so important that the remains go home. When I said, no, they are home. I mean, you know, this is Omaha Beach. The fact that he was a D-Day casualty, that's not lost on us. I knew that these were people of my uncle's generation. It just seemed like the right place. I know that it's a super-intended job to say, this is the best team I've ever had, but this is truly the best team I've ever had. They know that they're in America's most prestigious cemetery overseas. They know how important this is. It's not very often when there's a memorial service and a graveside in Terman, and it takes place at the end of the cemetery. The cemetery is the place where the remains of the remains go home. It's not very often when there is a memorial service and a graveside in Terman, and it takes place when not a single person here has ever met the deceased. That is the case with this young man we honor today. As I look across the headstones, mostly belonging to young men in their early 20s, just like Bill, I think of all of the stories associated with these amazing persons, and I think of their families, their parents, their spouses, their siblings, and perhaps in some cases the children they never saw grow up. On behalf of our great nation, please accept this flag in faithful service. The sand that we use for this operation comes from Omaha Beach itself. The rosette is a laurel wreath, which symbolizes eternity, and then the eight points of the compass, which symbolizes that we will continue to look for them at all points on the globe until they're found. The rosette also signifies that William McGowan is no longer missing in action. There's 1,557 names on the wall of the missing. We added the 20th rosette today. That rosette, for me, and I think for a lot of my siblings, that was the closure. I mean, that was the, you know, that was the moment. I feel like I've done something for my grandparents when the rosette went into the wall. We've got to get this right. We want the family to think that we care, because we do. Nothing reflects better what a nation values than what it will ask a young people to go die for. And in the same fashion, I think nothing speaks better of a nation than how well it will try to preserve the memory of those who have answered the call and made the ultimate sacrifice. They gave up their yesterdays so that our todays would be bathed in the kind of freedom and liberty that we sow treasure. Any time that you get to talk to a veteran is a very moving experience. Of course, we're fewer and fewer of those, but you'll find that they're incredibly humble men. I was in Luxembourg in the month of November. It's eight o'clock in the morning, and there's a tall man out there, six foot four or more, and he's got yellow roses with him. We don't open until nine, but I went out there and asked him what he was here for, and he said he was here to place a yellow rose on the headstones of 31 of his comrades. And so we brought him inside, let him warm up, and we said, so we're going to knock this out quick because we've got a golf cart, and we've got a computer system, we'll find them, and he said, no, I don't want to do it that way. And so he started at plot A, row one, cross number one, and went through all over 5,000 headstones and did miss a single one of his friends, which told me that he was reading every single one of those crosses. Joe Schumacher was the staff sergeant. He was in the 17th Airborne Division. He said on the 6th of January during the Battle of the Bulge, they've already taken heavy casualties and they've split his company up into three platoons and given each platoon a Belgian town to defend. When they got to the town, there was a small hamlet with three homes, a barn, and a chicken coop. He was told to take three men with him and go make sure there are no forward observers in those houses. Joe had received the newest addition to his platoon. He'd been in Europe two weeks and is thrown right in the Battle of the Bulge right away. He had no confidence in the man's ability to clear a house by himself. So he told the soldier to go clear the chicken coop, knowing there were no Germans in the chicken coop. When the soldier came back, he had found an egg. None of them had anything to eat since the 3rd of January. So there was a discussion about cooking the egg and separating it into four pieces, but everyone thought that would be a waste. And so they took the egg, they put it in a small box that they found, and they made a pact amongst each other that if any of them survived the Battle of the Bulge of World War II, he should eat the egg. Joe said he's the only one that survived. And he hasn't eaten the egg since the 6th of January 1944, 1945. It's still hot some today. Oh God, I'm glad that I am young, free to go, wander, to venture, to explore. Let me live life while I am able. When I change from the spring of youth to the first frost of age, and then to the white winter of old age, let me be able to say I have lived and I am not sorry. Wrote under a pseudonym. He used his mother's birth name, rather than hints when he was writing his poetry. Apparently, he thought that was more sophisticated. I mean, he was 19 or 20 when he wrote these. So even though he didn't live to the white snows of old age, I think he experienced life and enjoyed it tremendously. My father, I'm proud of all these people. Oh, Angel, what a difference. From the last time we were here, that old rainy, windy November day. Because I know Angel Matos, the superintendent and his staff. Ah, there it is. Lauren Hintz. You know what I find interesting is I always remember his grave site. Headstone number 25. That's my birthday. That's where it reminds me. Sadness, of course, but it's a peaceful thing. Knowing that they are not forgotten, that ABMC is taking care of them and that the people of the United States are remembering their work, their duty, their professionalism, as well as their sacrifice. From the very beginning, these cemeteries were thoughtful. They are artistic. Every time a plant or a tree is replaced, it has to follow the exact plan. And that's one of the beautiful things about these cemeteries. They don't sentimentalize. They are proud and strong and you look at the architecture. It was done with dignity and honor and that's what's coming through. There's a lot of things that goes into making this happen. I have a staff of 14, what I call artists, because every day they come here and they put their magical touches on everything that they do. There is not a day that goes by that my staff doesn't impress me with what they're doing. For example, if you take a bench, if you take a chair, a lot of people do not look into what goes into preparing that bench for our site. They tend to just look at it as something normal. And for us, I think it's not normal. It's what we, that's what makes us unique. This is the centennial of ABMC. I'm not going to be here in 100 years. I like to think of whoever the superintendent is, whoever the green team is, that this will still be a living, vibrant place where descendants down the line of my family and all these other families can come. Experience a place where equality reigns. A place where each soldier is respected and honored for the service he provided. And ABMC is doing that now. And I am certain that it will be doing this in another 100 years. My name is Charlotte Jusna. I'm the museum curator here at ABMC. I'm in charge of all the collection of the agency. So this is an exact replica and a model of the Florence American Cemetery. This model, as you see, that was built maybe in the 50s, is exactly what the cemetery looks like right now. So it's really interesting to have in front of you this small version of it and knowing that today, right now, it's still how it looks and it's exactly how it was built. I think it's a very important testimony on the process on how we built cemeteries. It's very important to remember that everything has a meaning. Where we put the tree, where we put the building. Nothing is just there by accident. Everything was built in a way to commemorate the soldier. We're looking at the plaster molds. They're both in the Florence Chapel facing each other. We can see the grids and some crosses that were made with a pen. This is the sign that this was used as a prototype. It's not a classical representation of an eagle. Normally the eagle is facing with the head looking on the side. It's interesting to have a sculpture that gives a different way of interpretation. It's not only the America, but it's also the fight, the war, the sacrifice. It's a different way of looking at it. My biggest dream is that maybe in 100 years we will have an ABC museum somewhere with all of our pieces displayed. If you get someone or something that explains, well, they choose this color for this reason and they choose this type of trees or this type of stars for the other reason, it sticks with you more. You get the information and you remember it a little bit more. I would love to see that exhibited somewhere with labels behind it that says ABMC Collection. I hope that happens and it will be a really great thing to see. The ABMC was established by the Act of Congress in March of 1923. There were at least two fundamental purposes. One was to create sites of remembrance, cemeteries, but ultimately monuments as well. 204, overlooking Shannon Peary at the Barn River, stands this beautiful monument to commemorate the feller and sacrifices of the American soldiers who fought in the region. It is for me it is a great pleasure to see before me on this former battlefield so many veterans who served here and elsewhere with the American Army in the World War. General John J. Pershing was a living American hero. He was the equivalent of a six-star general. There had never been anybody holding rank that high in the American Army. I extend a warm welcome here today and trust that your visit to France may meet with your highest expectations. I greet you most cordially. He was very much a hands-on leader of the American Battle Monuments Commission. He wanted to be assured year in, year out that all that was being preserved. Leaving this morning for France, we participated in the dedication of the First War Memorial for those that gave their lives in World War II. We are surrounded here by those who paid the price of our mistakes or misconceptions. They paid the full price and this was never to be forgotten. For Marshall to come along a generation later, a World War later, with all of his skill and with all of his heart for the soldiers that had been under his authority as Chief of Staff of the Army in Second World War. That's just amazing to me. General Marshall was very anxious to see a cemetery in the Philippines to cement the post-war relationship between the United States and the Philippines because it was on the 4th of July 1946 that the United States granted the Philippines their independence. When you see all of the white crosses, it seems so anonymous. There's little distinction between the names, little distinction between the crosses. Filipinos and Americans are laid side by side in the same way that they fought side by side, shoulder to shoulder. But that's the beauty of it. It's symbolic of the equality of the sacrifice of all of those that are buried and memorialized here. So we'll start in here. Our other cemeteries, most of which are in Europe, specifically cover particular battles or campaigns, but the Milan American Cemetery covers a whole range of battles and campaigns within the Pacific Theater of Operations. We have 17,000 that are buried out in the plots and about 36,000 names up here on the walls of the missing. And if you do the mass, that would be more than 50,000 individual stories of those that served and died during the Second World War in the Pacific Theater. My father joined me on a tour and it's the first time that he's heard me take people around on a tour. It really opened his eyes to just how wide or expansive the story is that we're trying to tell here at Manila. I've always been very impressed with the way the U.S. honors and treats its veterans. My father being a veteran himself, I've seen first hand how they treated him and my son is now continuing the legacy, the heritage. I think that's important. As we walk among the walls of the missing, you'll find that there are state seals featured on the floors, but when I see this state seal in particular, I know that I'm in my favorite part of the walls of the missing because if you look up here, the second name from the top, you'll see the name Lim Vicente Brigadier General, who is the first division Philippine Army entered service from the Philippines and he happens to be my great-grandfather. My grandfather is one of the more recognized heroes of World War II. He was the first Filipino graduate from West Point. He survived the Batan Death March. He was involved in organizing the guerrilla movement here in the Philippines until he got caught. Eventually executed. Even as a young boy, my great-grandfather left quite the legacy. My grandfather Vicente Jr. and my dad Vicente III really made it a point to make sure that I realized that legacy and how important it was to keep it going, to preserve it, to honor it. You know the famous war heroes, you know the battleships, you know certain aspects of history. We get an opportunity to speak about individuals that maybe didn't get the notoriety that some of the other heroes or battles have that they teach, you know as we're growing up going through school. There was one letter before the fall of Batan that he wrote his wife, probably the last known letter from those battlefields. He basically said, I sincerely give the credit to my officers and enlisted men. They're the ones who did it all and mine was only to inspire and to lead them. And when history is written, I will give them all the credit and their satisfaction is mine to share. Sometimes some of those stories feel like they kind of call out to you. I think those are the stories that are really important to tell because no one else is going to tell it. That's more than 50,000 individual stories that are just waiting to be told. If not me, then who? If not now, then when? I'm a veteran myself and I serve and I take a lot of pride in my service that I did for the United States Marine Corps. So I have that knowledge. I know their sacrifices and knowing what they went through just for us to be able to be sitting here and do this interview and get this opportunity is something that I try to make sure that our visitors, our employees are aware of that like the agency says time will not dim the glory of their deeds. I picked these flowers up because someone came and left them but they're getting old and someone next week is going to come lay some oil. So we'll pick these up and make room for some new ones. Tell me that. I'm a veteran. I did 20 years. Went home. I got a job that most people would have been happy to have but I didn't have a mission. There was nothing pushing me. That sense of purpose. That's where we're from. The kids are getting a little older so they're kind of starting to understand a little more what this is about. Like many of us who are here and are veterans we've lost people in Afghanistan and Iraq or maybe even Panama or Desert Storm. We don't need this explaining to us how important this is the commemoration and the remembering. So I think it probably didn't take me very long at all to realize that this is where I need to be. It's a good fit for me. I particularly like the cemetery because it's small and it's an intimate cemetery. I would say it's a family cemetery. They're all a family. The people who look after the cemetery are a family and the people around the cemetery, the community, is a family and it will always be looked after. Good morning. I'm Johnny. My pleasure. My uncle is Andrew Perry who served in the 45th, 90th Infantry. He became a code talker. He was a reconnaissance and when they first landed he would call back to another chalk tall in the other line telling them where this is, this is, this is, and this is. They had to come up with their own codes. You know what they would call a tank and what they would call a different equipment. Not one code was ever broken. None. Andrew brought mama to you this year. I have to take her back. It's nice to see someone else know about him because it was never talked about. His mother said goodbye and that was it. I mean, that's really sad. I mean, I could never, mm-mm, imagine hearing your son being killed and is buried. You don't believe this when you see this. Mom, still, all this for Andrew. She said, look at this place. I have a daughter. Her name is Liz and she's been absorbing a lot. You'll be the one that has to tell the story, yeah. I guess what everyone wants is taking care of him remembered and he will never be forgotten. Never, never be forgotten. I do have people who often come and say, I understand and I'm grateful for what goes on here. Then they tell me that younger generations don't. Thank you. We can't blame it on all the younger generations. It's not exactly their fault. They just find themselves in a position where they're very far removed from the Second World War. We're all far removed from the First World War. But I think these places can be used and we do actually use this cemetery as an educational tool for younger generations. We have school groups come all the time. So, ABMC's mission is not just to commemorate, but we also educate. What is important and special about working for the ABMC is the ability to be a part of a collective effort to continue to tell these incredible stories. The ability for people to identify with something creates that emotional connection. It forms a stronger memory. And it creates relevance. The American Battle Monuments Commission has always been interested in education. General Pershing himself understood the connection between soldiers dying, but for an objective, for a purpose. The ongoing work of education and preservation will always be unfinished. Closure is so important to families. There are families today who are still awaiting the location where their loved ones are interred. There are also families where the family members have been buried with a Christian cross when they should have been buried with a Jewish star of David. Be changing the headstones of two American soldiers who were identified as being Jewish versus of the Christian faith. So that is just an indicator of how ABMC is working with other federal agencies and other organizations to do the right thing. Someone once said that our flag, our American flag, does not fly because the wind moves it. Our flag flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it. And it is precisely this that brings us here today. These Latin crosses that will be roofed today are not symbols that we say good riddance to. Rather, we bid them a fond farewell. We lower our heads in gratitude and respect to these silent civil sentinels who have so majestically stood guard over these young men for all of these decades. For all kinds of understandable and legitimate reasons, a number of American Jewish soldiers who were killed during the Second World War were buried under Latin crosses. Working together with the ABMC, whom we have found to be extraordinarily helpful, supportive and respectful, we have embarked on an effort to right this historical wrong. Second Lieutenant Kenneth Earl Robinson, on behalf of the citizens of the United States of America, we thank you for your service. And Kenneth, on behalf of the Jewish people, we welcome you, Ho. May the merciful one protect his soul forever, and may he find his soul in the bonds of eternal life. The everlasting is his heritage, and may he rest in peace and let us stay on. There are many people here with me, my dear family who wanted to join with their old mother and grandmother in her joy, and most of all, my dad, Ed Robinson. I feel him here with me, telling me, good job. Thank you so much. Yisqad al-Bisqad al-Shireh Rabbah Ya'amadim Rabbah al-Shireh, Ya'amadim Rabbah al-Shireh. Closure. Closure to the families means a lot to our agency, because it's important to us to know that we've done the right thing. And ABMC is a unique, small agency with a really special mission, and that's to keep the memories alive. What I would like for people to understand about the American Battle Monuments Commission, behind the scenes, all our locally employed staff, the effort that they put in to ensure that they keep the cemeteries looking like it's one that the families and the veterans themselves would be proud of. And without those employees, it would not be possible. So we're very grateful for the employees all around the world that ABMC has as part of their agency. General Pershing said, time will not dim the glory of their deeds. And it's a concept and really a charter to the whole effort of the American Battle Monuments Commission these last 100 years. We have to make sure that as we go farther away from the events, that their deeds are not diminished, that they're not forgotten, that people understand what they did. And I think that as we look to the next 100 years, I think that same quote will drive what the American Battle Monuments Commission will do. Mr. Connolly has agreed to take some questions. If you have them, we have microphones on the side. We have volunteers to hand you a microphone if you have a question. So I'll invite Mr. Connolly to come back to the podium and just raise your hand if you have a question. Thank you. And I'm pleased to know that one of our agency historians, Ben Brands, is in the audience so he can help me with the tough questions. Okay, Ben. No tough questions. Yes, ma'am. Yes, that is... Yeah, the question was, do you have to speak the language of the nation you're assigned to if you're a superintendent? And the answer is yes. Because so many of the folks in the community, many of our green team workers themselves do not speak English. So our superintendents need to speak the local language. So as you noted, the time, as the movie noted, time is going on and memory is fading. It's an age old question. How are you going to... How is the commission going to be able to keep that memory fresh of all the sacrifices that have been made? World War I, World War II, when those generations are gone? Well, we actually have a fairly robust education program that we have started. At the cemetery level, beginning in 2007, when we dedicated our first visitor center at Normandy, actually on Monday, we will dedicate our 10th visitor center at Netherlands American Cemetery. When I first came to the agency, the first time I visited a cemetery, all of our cemeteries had visitor buildings. And when I first walked into one of them, it reminded me of the receiving room of a funeral parlor. And to your point, when you think about who the first visitors to our cemeteries were, they were the family members, the spouses, the mothers, the fathers, the siblings, they didn't need to be told the story. They didn't need the historical perspective of why that cemetery is there, why their loved one is buried there, because they lived it, they suffered it. But to your point, as we get further from the World Wars, we need to provide that historical perspective. And so that's why we've embarked on the visitor centers. In the States, we have partnerships with organizations like the National World War II Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum. We do a lot of seminars online with those agencies. Ben participates in many of those and talks about our mission. And we are about to hire a new executive director for education and public engagement to further coalesce all of these efforts into a vision to take the story forward so that the agency remains relevant, but most important, as it was pointed out in the film, that the stories of those sites' honor are not forgotten, that the individuals are remembered and that their sacrifice is remembered. So that is a mission that's very close to our heart. And we are putting the pieces together to work it aggressively. The question is that probably Vietnam is the last war, which was a public war. Iraq did not affect many Americans here personally. How is the commission taking upon that task of ensuring the populations that understand the sacrifices that have been made and the price that have been paid over the years as those are for the democracy that we have? Our sites commemorate World War I, World War II, but at the Honolulu Memorial in Hawaii, we also have courts of the missing from the Korean War and the Vietnam War. We have not built any memorials to any campaigns or wars since Vietnam. There are national memorial efforts going on in Washington, D.C., but they are being led by private foundation efforts. Do you have a favorite cemetery? I think of our 26, I think I have actually been in 14 of them. They are all special. Anytime I visit, you know, because of my position, the superintendent wants to tend to stay with me, to escort me around, but I always want to take time on my own just to walk through the plots and reflect on that sacrifice. Cambridge American Cemetery, being an Air Force retiree is special to me because one of the big stories that it tells and the individuals honored were involved in the strategic bombing campaign of World War II, so there is a very close service connection there. But there is just something special and unique about Normandy that no matter how many times I have visited that cemetery, it continues to leave me speechless. First of all, it's got D-Day, and most people know D-Day, know what D-Day is, but it's location on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach and when you look down at that beach and you think about what they did on D-Day, having to come up those cliffs, those hills, in the face of enemy fire and you just sit there and you say, how did they do that? But they did. And that's why we exist, to make sure people never forget what they did. So Normandy, I guess, to answer your question, I would say Normandy. Cambridge would be a close second, though. Oh, thank you. That was one of our centennial projects. Thank you. And for those of you who don't know what she's talking about, we produced a series of Art Deco-style posters of the cemeteries, and if you go to our website, abmc.gov, there are files of them that you can download and print. It's a distinct advantage for those in other countries to be able to visit the cemeteries, which is not an advantage to us here in America, unless you have plans to go. Many of us will never be able to see them. Is there any other way that we can get a good look at these beautiful cemeteries and special sites? Yes, there is. And to your point, that's a very valid point. I think on the film it said we get close to 3 million visitors a year, and I would say that probably 85%, 90% of those visitors are the foreign nationals who live in those countries. And they're usually the attendees at our Memorial Day ceremonies and other ceremonies that are held throughout the year at the sites because they're there. After seeing that film, hopefully all of you would be motivated to go to see one of these sites, maybe more on your travels. But to the point of the question, it may be several years before you have the wherewithal to do it. But if you visit our website, abmc.gov, we just recently launched 360-degree tours of each of the cemeteries, and you can basically take a tour of the cemetery on our website. And experience the architecture, the artwork, but especially the feeling of the commemoration that they perform. So these cemeteries and memorials are all getting older. And as things get older, infrastructure gets a little bit more challenging. Do you have challenges right now? And do you see with maintaining the infrastructure, maintaining these cemeteries as they are? And then how much support are you getting to continue maintaining those cemeteries? Well, we are a small federal agency, so we are funded through an appropriation through the Congress. And we're all very grateful that our budget request always gets strong bipartisan support. Our annual budget is somewhere in the neighborhood of $88-$89 million. And our standard for maintenance is like new. That's why you saw the example of re-engraving replacement crosses. If a cross becomes damaged, or if it becomes the inscription, for example, on a World War I headstone, it becomes less than legible, then we replace that headstone. We don't let it just continue to age gracefully. And so we do have challenges. Right now, we're facing environmental challenges. In many places in Europe, the Rhone Cemetery you saw has had severe drought conditions. And so we honor the local water restrictions. And so there are a lot of maintenance challenges that come, as you say with the sites. Mexico City National Cemetery is about 151 years old, I believe, something like that. So, yes, it is a challenge, but the dedication of those crews that you saw working in those cemeteries and the continued support that we get from Capitol Hill and our annual appropriations, we are able to keep up with it. Well, thank you very much for joining us tonight. It's been a pleasure to share the last hour plus with you. And I hope you do have occasion and the opportunity to visit one of these sites for yourself. It's an experience that you will never forget. I promise you that.