A Connection Made. A Promise Fulfilled.

In just a few months, the Foundation's Forever Promise Project has connected more than 350 American families with the Dutch adopters who care for the graves of their loved ones. Each story is worthy of being shared, and we hope, with time, to feature them all on our online platforms. For now, we want to begin by sharing this one.

In May, ninety-three-year-old June Brandt of Richmond, Texas, reached out to the Monuments Men and Women Foundation after reading Robert M. Edsel’s Houston Chronicle op-ed about the Forever Promise Project. Her brother, Staff Sergeant William Durham “W. D.” West Jr. was just twenty-one when his plane was shot down over Germany two weeks before the end of World War II. Though June once visited the Netherlands American Cemetery, she had never known that every one of its more than 8,000 graves has been lovingly adopted by a Dutch family for the past eighty years—including that of her brother.

Staff Sergeant William Durham “W. D.” West Jr. Courtesy of June Brandt.

When June contacted the Forever Promise Project team via the Monuments Men and Women Foundation, she shared that it would mean everything to her to know someone in the Netherlands was watching over her brother’s grave. The Foundation immediately reached out to its Dutch partners at the Stichting Adoptie Graven Amerikaanse Begraafplaats Margraten to locate William’s adopters. Within days, they were identified: Lisa and Guido, a young couple in their thirties who recently welcomed their first child.

June and her daughter Allison were introduced to Lisa and Guido over Zoom—a deeply emotional meeting that moved everyone involved. As they exchanged stories and gratitude, tears flowed freely on both sides of the Atlantic. For June, it brought peace; for Lisa and Guido, it deepened their sense of purpose.

Robert M. Edsel with Allison Woods, daughter of June Brandt, and her family, along with Lisa and Guido Meijers, adopters of W. D.’s marker, at the Walls of the Missing in the Netherlands American Cemetery, August 2025.

This August, the story came full circle. Robert M. Edsel, along with the Foundation’s senior researchers Casey Shelton and Dorothee Schneider, traveled to the Netherlands to witness Allison and her family’s visit to her uncle’s marker and meeting with Lisa and Guido in person. They were joined by Frans Roebroeks, secretary of the Dutch adoption program, and Joe Alotto, the American Battle Monuments Commission’s superintendent of the Netherlands American Cemetery. Standing together before the Walls of the Missing, where W. D.’s name is memorialized, they fulfilled what June had long hoped for—the connection of two families bound by gratitude and remembrance across generations and oceans. “To know that someone will think of my brother and that he will never be forgotten is earth shattering to me,” June said. “What a wonderful gift you have given to our family.”

Learn more at www.foreverpromise.org.