Americans are still welcome in Bastogne.

“The American veterans who have returned 60 years later to the battle site represent those who gave their lives on our soil so that today we can live free,” Bastogne Mayor Philippe Collard said in French at a memorial honoring U.S. General George S. Patton.

He added in English: “We will never forget. You are home here.”

I fervently hope that, to the degree that they do so now, the French can continue to live free, in the face of the new totalitarian threat in their midst to which they are only now awakening. They, and much of western Europe, are now on one of the front lines of the new war, whether they realize it or not.