Jeff Wiggins, one of the most articulate and thoughtful men you will ever meet, struggled to put his heart on paper.
Sixty-five years after the New Fairfield man plunged a shovel into the Dutch countryside during World War II, the sadness was suffocating, if not crippling.


Time had not lightened the memory of burying 250 or more U.S. soldiers -- every day -- for 2 1/2 months in 1944. The fallen soldiers, barely old enough to vote in many cases, came by the truckload to Margraten, a small farming town near the German border.


"It took months for Jeff to write that speech," his wife, Janice, said. "He used to sit down every day to write. Sometimes, the words came out. Sometimes, they didn't."


Finally, after flying to the Netherlands last month to take part in memorial observances at the Netherlands American Cemetery, Jeff Wiggins delivered the speech of his life with dignity, grace and courage, the same qualities he used as a 19-year-old gravedigger from Alabama.


Just like the war around him, there was nothing fair about this detail. The white soldiers identified the dead, usually with dog tags. The black soldiers, men like Wiggins, dug the graves and buried their innocence with the casualties.


"I had only seen but one death in my life before the war," Wiggins said, pausing a moment to inhale his composure. "My sister passed away when she was 11 years old. Nine years later, we was burying 100s of war dead every day."


Wiggins, 84, is believed to be the last surviving gravedigger at Margraten. He was given a hero's welcome by the Dutch people last month and treated like a visiting dignitary by local officials.



Some strangers hugged Wiggins and held on. Others shook his hand and thanked him, well aware of the sacrifices Wiggins made, but much too young to remember the war.


"I really wasn't sure if I was going to get through that speech," said Wiggins, who also took his 8-year-old great-grandson, Malcolm, on the trip. "But once I started talking, I tried to imagine I was one of the family members who had a loved one buried at Margraten.


"I was in two worlds at the same time: the world of Margraten where I was a gravedigger and the world of Margraten where I was being honored. It really wasn't one or the other. It was both."


Overall, Wiggins said, 260 black U.S. servicemen dug the graves at Margraten, a town smaller than New Fairfield. It was a cold and muddy job, but there was honor every time a soldier was laid to rest.


In 40 years of marriage, Janice Wiggins never heard her husband speak of burying soldiers in the same uniform they had died in. He kept the nightmares to himself, tucked away in a dark part of his heart.


These soldiers -- some limbless, all lifeless -- didn't get a 21-gun salute at Margraten. They didn't get a polished coffin with an American flag draped over the top.


Instead, they got a short prayer and men who cared enough to cry.


"I almost passed out the first time I saw it again after all these years," Jeff said. "It was overwhelming. To be honest with you, Janice and I wanted to have this moment for ourselves, but there were like four or five camera crews there.


"At first, I was quite upset. But then, I realized this moment was important to the people of Margraten and the people of the Netherlands, too. They wanted to share it with me."


Wiggins made three official trips to Margraten, the cemetery that he helped dig as a first sergeant. The last time he visited, cemetery officials lowered the American flag and presented it to him.


The gruesome scene that Wiggins remembers is gone now. The mud and the misery have been replaced by a gorgeous cathedral and beautifully manicured grounds.


The cemetery is similar to the one at Normandy, Wiggins explained, with row after row of white crosses marking the eternal resting place of too many U.S. soldiers.


Unfortunately, after Wiggins came home, he wasn't greeted with another hero's welcome in New Fairfield.
Instead, he discovered racist e-mails had been forwarded around town by Ralph Langham, the man who had filled his vacated seat on the school board.


"I felt like I had been punched in the stomach or slapped in the face," Wiggins said. "I couldn't believe it. But at the same time, I could believe it. I'd like to think we've gotten past this -- past the ignorance and the intolerance and the hatred -- but we still have a long way to go, I'm afraid."


The admission isn't easy for Wiggins, the proud son of a sharecropper.
If nothing else, Jeff Wiggins has learned, racism and ignorance are just as hard to bury as a soldier's remains.


Maybe even harder.


Contact Brian Koonz at bkoonz@newstimes.com or 203-731-3411.


Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial n More than 8,000 of America's military dead from World War II are buried there n Graves were dug by black U.S. soldiers, including New Fairfield's Jeff Wiggins n Cemetery covers 65 acres of former farmland in a small town called Margraten n More than 100,000 people visit the cemetery each year to pay their respects