{"id":15037,"date":"2025-03-24T10:52:41","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T10:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/to-him-americans-were-always-heroes-hes-not-so-sure-about-todays\/"},"modified":"2025-03-24T10:52:41","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T10:52:41","slug":"to-him-americans-were-always-heroes-hes-not-so-sure-about-todays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/to-him-americans-were-always-heroes-hes-not-so-sure-about-todays\/","title":{"rendered":"To Him, Americans Were Always Heroes. He\u2019s Not So Sure About Today\u2019s."},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For eight decades, Henri Mignon has viewed Americans as heroes. They twice liberated his tiny Belgian hometown, Houffalize, from German occupation \u2014 the second time, he said, when he was 8 years old, mere hours after shrapnel from shelling had killed his father.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The image of U.S. troops handing out gum to local children is a memory he has carried with him ever since. And he has dedicated more than 30 years to retelling the story of the war as a guide to tourists who flock to this corner of the Belgium-Luxembourg border, eager to learn about the last major German offensive on the Western Front.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But this month Mr. Mignon, 88, said he felt uncomfortable as he anticipated his Saturday morning Battle of the Bulge tour in Bastogne, just south of Houffalize.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It was not long after <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/01\/us\/politics\/zelensky-showdown-trump.html\" title=\"\">the disastrous meeting<\/a> between President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and President Trump in the Oval Office, and it came as Mr. Trump was presenting a conciliatory tone toward Vladimir V. Putin, Russia\u2019s leader.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Usually Mr. Mignon portrays Americans as heroes and talks about the strong bonds between this part of the world and the United States. This time, he said, he didn\u2019t know exactly what to think about the relationship.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cI feel it is changing,\u201d he admitted in the days leading up to the tour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Mignon has taken issue with American foreign policy before \u2014 during the Vietnam War, at times over the Middle East. Yet current events had pushed him and his fellow guides to a new level of distress, he said. Like many Europeans, they had felt their long-held admiration for the United States shudder.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some guides, he said, had considered halting tours for American groups altogether. Mr. Mignon never contemplated that, but he did fret over exactly what he would say as he shuttled students and teachers from North Carolina around Bastogne. Would he again emphasize the closeness of the relationship between Europeans and Americans? How would he do that when modern America, from his vantage in Belgium, was looking far less heroic?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The sun was high and the March sky a gleaming blue as Mr. Mignon, sprightly, white-haired and wearing a Yankees cap, waited for the students to gather in Bastogne\u2019s town square. The flags of Belgium, the European Union and the United States flapped gently behind him as they arrived, toting bags of Belgian chocolate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Mignon began with a joke about his name, which means \u201clittle and cute\u201d in French. He then launched into his tour, explaining how the Germans had occupied Bastogne for much of the war. It was liberated by the Americans in September 1944. But then, that December, German forces recaptured the town, which was again freed by Americans during the Battle of the Bulge.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The book and television show \u201cBand of Brothers\u201d center in part on the events in Bastogne, and once the students had boarded their tour bus, Mr. Mignon had the driver whisk them past real-life locations related to scenes from the show. He told them the true stories of Easy Company, the battalion on which the book and series focuses.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He explained to the students that Bastogne remains a very \u201cAmerican town,\u201d one where the bell tower plays the opening notes of \u201cThe Star Spangled Banner\u201d every hour.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After the students had filed off the bus and into an underground crypt dedicated to the war dead \u2014 below a memorial bearing the names of American states \u2014 Mr. Mignon described to them \u201chis war.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He recalled the day he was abruptly dismissal from school with a promise that he would be allowed to come back soon. It would be more than a year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He described the Germans boarders who filled his house from basement to attic, growing progressively less kind as the war dragged on. He told how, on the final day of the second occupation, American soldiers had whisked him away in a Jeep from his burning house, ignited in the crossfire when they retook the town.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Mignon said that his family had \u201clost everything,\u201d in the war, and that Americans had helped set them back on their feet.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After the war, Mr. Mignon finished school, studied military history in Brussels, and ultimately became an officer in the Belgian Army before retiring to this tiny town in Francophone Belgium, where he became a guide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">During the tour, Mr. Mignon spoke in the practiced manner of someone who has recited a grim story hundreds of times, maybe thousands. He did not offer any commentary on Mr. Trump or about how starkly America\u2019s military involvement in Europe 80 years ago contrasts with the stance it is increasingly taking. He said he had decided that the tour was about celebrating the veterans of the past, not the United States of the present.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The Americans themselves avoided talking about politics during their trip, which had started in France and would continue on to Germany. \u201cMy responsibility as a government teacher is to teach how the government works and is supposed to work,\u201d Laura Krizan, a teacher leading the trip, explained. \u201cI\u2019d rather them graduate and not know how I vote.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">And the Europeans they had encountered had been \u201cshy\u201d about broaching current events, said Thomas Boyreau-Suz\u00e9mont, who had helped organize and shepherd the tour through various World War II sites across Europe \u2014 even if politics is perpetually top of mind these days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWe never thought that this alliance would be in danger,\u201d Mr. Boyreau-Suz\u00e9mont said, of the European-U.S. connection. \u201cPeople are shocked,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Mignon\u2019s matter-of-factness slipped at the final stop of the tour, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/visitwallonia.com\/en-gb\/3\/i-love\/heritage-and-culture\/wallonia-in-the-wars\/39-45\/the-battle-of-the-ardennes\/fox-holes\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">a tranquil pine forest<\/a> that conceals foxholes once used by the Easy Company.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There, he used his cane to point out the divots in the earth that American soldiers dug to shelter themselves from shells and ammunition as they spent freezing winter days and nights attempting to defend Bastogne and push back German forces. He explained that the trees overhead were new growth, that they had not been present to \u201cwitness\u201d the fighting that once transpired here.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The students, who had been listening politely, turned rapt as he told the stories in his heavily-accented English; the foxholes seemed to resonate with them more than the rest of the tour. And when Mr. Boyreau-Suz\u00e9mont suggested it was time to leave, Mr. Mignon objected vociferously. The group had yet to see the most important and best-preserved foxholes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><em class=\"css-2fg4z9 e1gzwzxm0\">\u201cJe cours,\u201d<\/em> he insisted. I\u2019ll run.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The group ended up touring those foxholes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But as someone so deeply invested in the past, Mr. Mignon could not completely dispel of the present. On the bus ride back, with just minutes left, his resolve to not talk about modern events slipped.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">He was describing May 8, when Bastogne celebrates Victory in Europe Day, with ceremonies held in honor of its American saviors. The day falls on May 9 in Russia, because of the time zone difference. He mused about what it would be like this year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cMaybe your president will be present in Moscow then,\u201d he quipped, to utter silence on the bus. \u201cWith his friends Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     crossorigin=\"anonymous\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- ItShrt World News -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:block\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-6606220950177433\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1882483372\"\r\n     data-ad-format=\"auto\"\r\n     data-full-width-responsive=\"true\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/03\/24\/world\/europe\/europe-world-war-two-battle-of-the-bulge-band-of-brothers.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For eight decades, Henri Mignon has viewed Americans as heroes. They twice liberated his tiny Belgian hometown, Houffalize, from German<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[4783,935,151,592],"class_list":["post-15037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-battle-of-the-bulge","tag-belgium","tag-europe","tag-world-war-ii-1939-45"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>To Him, Americans Were Always Heroes. He\u2019s Not So Sure About Today\u2019s. - World News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/site.itshrt.com\/worldnews\/to-him-americans-were-always-heroes-hes-not-so-sure-about-todays\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To Him, Americans Were Always Heroes. He\u2019s Not So Sure About Today\u2019s. - World News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"For eight decades, Henri Mignon has viewed Americans as heroes. 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