A soldiers check the last details of preparations of the cemetery before the annual Memorial Day commemoration at the American cemetery in Margraten, on May 29, 2022. Robin van Lonkhuijsen/ANP/AFP/Getty Images

In the winter of 1944, as some of the bloodiest fighting in World War II ramped up in Europe, 19-year-old then-1st Sgt. Jefferson Wiggins, along with hundreds of other Black soldiers, were tasked with burying the dead in the southern Netherlands.

What was once a fruit orchard would become the final resting place for thousands of fallen US service members. It was difficult, gruesome work, done in near-constant rain and snow with only pick axes and shovels. Years later, Wiggins would recall how soldiers under his command in the 960th Quartermaster Service Company cried as they lowe

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