In a recent letter to the editor, the scribe described the assistance that France provided the hard-pressed American colonies in their struggle to gain freedom from Great Britain. French aid was vital as his quote aptly describes.

But this is not the whole story.

The United States’ debt to France has been repaid in blood and treasure many times over between the American Revolution and the present. The AEF suffered 50,000 killed and 205,000 wounded in World War I while assisting the worn-out and wavering British and French forces on the Western Front in 1918. The United States loaned $10 billion to Britain and France to continue the war.

In World War II, the United States suffered 405,000 killed to save the world from Fascist domination. This after France was overrun in the spring of 1940. Can we forget the losses on D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, or the Heurtgen Forest? Again, billions were loaned to Britain and France through Lend Lease.

Can we forget the billions granted to Western European nations, including France, after World War II through the Marshall Plan to prevent communists from taking control of their governments?

The United States provided both materiel and financial aid to France in its struggles to retain control of Vietnam in the early 1950s.

Can we forget that France kicked U.S. forces committed to NATO out of France in 1967, yet continued to be protected by U.S. forces stationed elsewhere in Europe? Little of the billions have been repaid.

This is the rest of the story.

Peyton E. Cook

Southern Pines