The archivist brought me a couple boxes that I requested. They were clearly wrongly marked. It looked as if I was opening them for the first time since they were closed. I went through the material and was absolutely awe-struck by what I saw. They were casualties reports, all KIA if remember correctly, by name, rank, unit, place, etc., of our 82nd and 101st Airborne troops during Operation Market Garden in Holland. There were stacks (100s) of these pages with more than a dozen names per page.

I was running out of time to complete my research on counter-insurgency but I could not put down the documents. I carefully read each page. I was completely shattered and began to shed tears in the middle of the National Archives reading room. I finished going through every page in those two boxes — that had never been opened before.

I have been to the Arlington, to the Omaha, to the Meuse-Argonne, to the Gettysburg, and to many, many other American military cemeteries, but seeing the names, ranks, and places each one of those boys died was next level. I will never forget that.