::DAY 1: First-Time Flyers & Fallen Soldiers::

One big plane and one small plane stood between us and Europe. The small plane and I didn't get along, but I think I did a good job of hiding it. Meanwhile, my little first-time flyers didn't care how much we bounced around way up above solid ground. They thought the whole thing was just fantastic.

The red-eye flight swallowed my night whole, and I emerged in Brussels groggy and slightly ill. Maybe that was why my first footfall in Groesbeek Cemetery shook loose tears that watered every row of headstones. Or, maybe it was because "Age 19" etched in funeral stone is simply very, very sad.