Forgotten History is marking Memorial Day with a special episode focused on the Americans who died overseas in service to the United States.
The episode, “Memorial Day Special: Honoring the Fallen,” examines the American Battle Monuments Commission, the federal agency responsible for maintaining U.S. military cemeteries and memorials around the world.
Host Colin D. Heaton explains how Memorial Day began as Decoration Day after the Civil War, when Americans placed flowers on the graves of the dead. He then turns to ABMC, which President Warren G. Harding established in 1923 after World War I to honor American service members buried overseas and preserve the memory of the battles they fought.
Gen. John J. Pershing helped shape the commission’s early mission, pushing for overseas cemeteries to stand not as ordinary burial grounds, but as enduring national shrines.
ABMC now maintains 26 permanent American military cemeteries and 31 federal memorials, monuments, and markers in 17 countries. The commission says more than 200,000 U.S. service members are buried or memorialized at its sites.
The episode also highlights retired Army Maj. Gen. William “Bill” Matz Jr., a Vietnam veteran and former ABMC secretary who died earlier this year. Heaton credits Matz with renewing attention to America’s overseas military cemeteries and the duty to care for them.
“Put bluntly, the ABMC exists because the United States decided that the memory of its war dead overseas should not be left to improvisation, local politics, or the slow rot of bureaucracy,” Heaton says in the episode.
The Memorial Day special reminds viewers that the holiday is not simply a long weekend, but a day to remember the men and women who never returned home.
Watch the full Forgotten History episode HERE.
