Following World War I, Congress recognized the need for federal control over the commemoration of American armed forces overseas. On March 4, 1923, President Warren Harding signed legislation that established the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) and made the new agency responsible for the construction of monuments honoring the American Expeditionary Forces. Soon after, Congress directed ABMC to construct memorial chapels in the eight permanent military cemeteries in Europe, which were at the time maintained by the War Department. In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an Executive Order that shifted the responsibility for the management and maintenance of these hallowed grounds to ABMC.

Final dispositions of the remains of service personnel who died in World War I and World War II were carried out under the provisions of Public Law 389, 66th Congress and Public Law 368, 80th Congress, respectively. These laws entitled the next of kin to select permanent interment of a family member’s remains in an American military cemetery on foreign soil designed, constructed and maintained specifically to honor in perpetuity the dead of these wars. Alternatively, the next of kin could have the remains repatriated to the United States for interment in a national or private cemetery.

Today, ABMC administers, operates and maintains 26 permanent American burial grounds and 29 separate memorials, monuments and markers, on foreign soil. It also maintains three memorials in the United States. Today there are 124,000 American war dead interred in these cemeteries, of which 30,973 are from World War I commemorative cemeteries, 93,202 from World War II commemorative cemeteries, and 750 from the Mexican-American War. Additionally, more than 15,000 American veterans and others are interred in the Mexico City National Cemetery, Corozal American Cemetery and Clark Veterans Cemetery. More than 94,000 American servicemen and women who were missing in action, lost, or buried at sea during World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are commemorated by name on stone tablets in ABMC cemeteries and memorials.

Among those buried or memorialized by the ABMC are 2076 from Colorado. 1724 lie at rest in 21 of the 26 burial grounds and 352 are included on the memorials, monuments and markers. In 2017 the Colorado Freedom Memorial Foundation, in partnership with the ABMC, set out to create a stronger connection between our memorial and the final resting places of our fallen heroes. That became the campaign known as “From Hallowed Ground to Home’s Embrace”, as soil from one cemetery in each of the eight countries where Colorado veterans lie was presented during the Colorado Remembers Ceremony on May 27, 2017. The cemeteries and the nations they represent are; Muese-Argonne, France; Cambridge American, United Kingdom; Henri-Chapelle, Belgium; Luxembourg American, Luxembourg; Netherlands American, The Netherlands; Florence American, Italy; North Africa American, Tunis, Tunisia and Manila American, Philippines. Colorado rose-red granite pillars make up the soils final resting place at the Colorado Freedom Memorial, a beautiful tribute where symbolically the 2076 who left to defend the world’s freedom, have come home.