She walked, hand in hand with her boyfriend, down the path that split the cemetery into sections. Thousands of pristine white crosses and Stars of David stretched out across the acres. She was over four thousand miles from her country, and her home, but in this foreign land, amongst the memorials and flowers, she felt at home. In reality, she was in her boyfriend's country, but here she was among her compatriots. The compatriots who were real patriots - heroes in her eyes.
On this hallowed ground were buried men, but in truth they were mere boys. Boys, who had only months before being buried, graduated high school and crossed the ocean, in this country doing a noble job, and all too many dying in that pursuit.
She and her boyfriend stood at the walls, reading the names of those boys laid to rest here, and stopping briefly at the chapel to say a silent prayer of thanks. Thanking those young men for their valor, courage and sacrifice. Thanking them for being part of the effort to free this tiny country. They made her country proud, and proved themselves the greatest generation. Without their efforts, what would have become of this tiny nation on whose soil she now stood? Would she have been able to stand there on this day, holding the hand of the man she loved, or would her boyfriend's country have been forever oppressed if not for the efforts of those young men?
As she and her love were leaving, she saw a group of people, slightly older than herself, with several small children. They were from the country who her nation fought, and who oppressed the country of her boyfriend.
She wondered what that group thought as they stood among the graves. What did they tell their children? For in the hallowed ground lay the boys who fought these person's grandfathers and great uncles. What would they tell their children?
She hoped that they would tell their children that they hoped that there would never again have to be a place such as this, anywhere in the world.
