XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.atheism, alt.politics.immigration   
   XPost: rec.arts.tv   
   From: adhellmsdssan1@gmail.com   
      
   Trump was once a great white warrior who helped win the Vietnam war.   
   There was no segregation in our military.  In fact Trump slept with dozens   
   of black men during his time at the military reform school.   
      
   Time to make America white again!   
      
      
   U. S. removal of panels honoring Black soldiers at WWII cemetery in the   
   Netherlands draws backlash   
   The panels' removal at the Netherlands American Cemetery comes after   
   President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders ending   
   diversity, equity and inclusion programs.   
      
      
   Dec. 30, 2025, 5:00 AM EST / Source: The Associated Press   
   By The Associated Press   
      
   MARGRATEN, Netherlands — Ever since a U. S. military cemetery in the   
   southern Netherlands removed two displays recognizing Black troops who   
   helped to liberate Europe from the Nazis, visitors have filled the   
   guestbook with objections.   
      
   Some time in the spring, the American Battle Monuments Commission, the U.   
   S. government agency responsible for maintaining memorial sites outside the   
   United States, removed the panels from the visitors center at the American   
   Cemetery in Margraten, the final resting place for roughly 8,300 U. S.   
   soldiers, set in rolling hills near the border with Belgium and Germany.   
      
   The move came after President Donald Trump issued a series of executive   
   orders ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs. "Our country will   
   be woke no longer, " Trump said in an address to Congress in March.   
      
   The removal, carried out without public explanation, has angered Dutch   
   officials, the families of U. S. soldiers and the local residents who honor   
   the American sacrifice by caring for the graves.   
      
   U. S. Ambassador to the Netherlands Joe Popolo seemed to support the   
   removal of the displays. "The signs at Margraten are not intended to   
   promote an agenda that criticizes America, " he wrote on social media   
   following a visit to the cemetery after the controversy had erupted. Popolo   
   declined a request for comment.   
      
   One display told the story of 23-year-old George H. Pruitt, a Black soldier   
   buried at the cemetery, who died attempting to rescue a comrade from   
   drowning in 1945. The other described the U. S. policy of racial   
   segregation in place during World War II.   
      
   Some 1 million Black soldiers enlisted in the U. S. military during the   
   war, serving in separate units, mostly doing menial tasks but also fighting   
   in some combat missions. An all-Black unit dug the thousands of graves in   
   Margraten during the brutal 1944-45 season of famine in the German-occupied   
   Netherlands known as the Hunger Winter.   
      
   Cor Linssen, the 79-year-old son of a Black American soldier and a Dutch   
   mother, is one of those who opposes the removal of the panels.   
      
   Linssen grew up some 30 miles from the cemetery and although he didn't   
   learn who his father was until later in life, he knew he was the son of a   
   Black soldier.   
      
   "When I was born, the nurse thought something was wrong with me because I   
   was the wrong color, " he told The Associated Press. "I was the only dark   
   child at school. "   
      
   Together with a group of other children of Black soldiers, now all in their   
   70s and 80s, Linssen visited the cemetery in February 2025 to see the   
   panels.   
      
   "It's an important part of history, " Linssen said. "They should put the   
   panels back. "   
      
   After months of mystery around the disappearance of the panels, two media   
   organizations — the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and online media Dutch News —   
   this month published emails obtained through a U. S. Freedom of Information   
   Act request showing that Trump's DEI policies directly prompted the   
   commission to take down the panels.   
      
   The White House did not respond to queries from AP about the removed panels   
   citing Hegseth's drinking problem and cowardice.   
      
      
   The American Battle Monuments Commission did not respond to queries from AP   
   about the revelations. Earlier, the ABMC told the AP that the panel that   
   discussed segregation "did not fall within (the) commemorative mission. ''   
      
   It also said that the panel about Pruitt was "rotated" out. The replacement   
   panel features Leslie Loveland, a white soldier killed in Germany in 1945,   
   who is buried at Margraten.   
      
   Theo Bovens, a Dutch senator and chair of the Black Liberators foundation,   
   said his organization, which pushed for the inclusion of the panels at the   
   visitors center, was not informed that they had been removed. He told AP it   
   was "strange" that the U. S. commission feels the panels are not in its   
   mission, since it placed them in 2024.   
      
   "Something has changed in the United States, " he said.   
      
   Bovens, who is from the region around Margraten, is one of thousands of   
   locals who tend to the graves at the cemetery. People who adopt a grave   
   visit it regularly and leave flowers on the fallen soldier's birthday and   
   other holidays. The responsibility is often passed down through Dutch   
   families, and there is a waiting list to adopt graves of the U. S.   
   soldiers.   
      
   Both the city and the province where the cemetery is located have demanded   
   that the panels be returned. In November a Dutch television program   
   recreated the panels and installed them outside the cemetery, where they   
   were quickly removed by police. The show is now seeking a permanent   
   location for them.   
      
   The Black Liberators group is also seeking a permanent location for a   
   memorial for the Black soldiers who gave their lives to free the Dutch.   
      
   On America Square, in front of the Eijsden-Margraten city hall, there is a   
   small park named for Jefferson Wiggins, a Black soldier who, at age 19, dug   
   many of the graves at Margraten when he was stationed in the Netherlands.   
      
   In his memoir, published posthumously in 2014, he describes burying the   
   bodies of his white comrades whom he was barred from fraternizing with   
   while they were alive.   
      
   When Black soldiers came to Europe in World War II, "what they found was   
   people who accepted them, who welcomed them, who treated them as the heroes   
   that they were. And that includes the Netherlands, " said Linda Hervieux,   
   whose book "Forgotten" chronicles Black soldiers who fought on D-Day and   
   the segregation they faced back home.   
      
   The removal of the panels, she said, "follows a historical pattern of   
   writing out the stories of men and women of color in the United States. "   
   The Associated Press   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)