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(Rome, Italy) Hundreds of local Italian citizens and military officials from across Europe gathered near Rome on Memorial Day, Monday, to pay their respects to the more than 11,000 U.S. soldiers buried and memorialized at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery.

"They fought for liberty in Europe during World War II and remain here in Italy, forever on duty in the cause of freedom. Among them was one man who has a special connection to me - Leonard Penrod. His great niece, Chelsey Penrod, works for me in Washington, D.C.," said U.S. Senator Larry Craig, ranking member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

"Leonard was a pilot whose plane was lost over the Mediterranean, but his sacrifice is not forgotten."

Penrod was born and raised in the Boise, Idaho. He trained to become an accountant, but in the late 1930s, as Adolf Hitler in Germany began to marshal his forces against the freedom-loving people of Poland, France and England, Penrod grew impatient with the U.S. government's reluctance to join in the conflict. He moved to Canada to join the Royal Canadian Army and was trained as a combat pilot.

When the U.S. finally entered the war in 1941, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Penrod transferred to the U.S. Army Air Force. He was a member of the 319th bomb group whose planes flew bombing missions over North Africa, Italy and Germany. Trained for low level work, the unit bomb enemy units along coastal areas and used the skip bombing technique against enemy shipping in the Mediterranean.

Penrod's name is now inscribed along with over 3,000 other names of Americans who died while fighting in and out of southern Italy - but whose bodies were never recovered.

"The scope of so many graves, thousands of graves here, is hard to comprehend, acre after acre, row after row of white marble crosses. It is fitting that on Memorial Day we are here to remember them," Craig said. "On average, 2,220 Americans gave their lives every week during World War II. There are 7,861 interred here at the Sicily-Rome American Cemetery, among them 33 from my home state of Idaho."

"General George Patton said that, ‘It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather, we should thank God that such men lived,'" Craig said.

Joining Sen. Craig in praising the fallen Americans was Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson and American Ambassador to Italy, Ronald Spogli.

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