00:00The Dutch King and Queen have attended an event with World War II veterans to mark the
00:0680th anniversary of the country's liberation from German occupation.
00:11American veteran Kenneth Thayer returned to the tiny Dutch village he and his compatriots
00:15liberated from the Nazis.
00:17King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima were driven in a vintage military truck into the
00:22village of Mesh, a tiny settlement of about 350 people.
00:27German troops from the 30th Infantry Division, known as Old Hickory, were among the Allied
00:31forces that liberated parts of Belgium and the southern Netherlands from German occupation
00:36in September 1944.
00:38First of all, it wasn't just me.
00:42And look at the hundreds and hundreds of guys who didn't make it.
00:48They're not here.
00:49Thayer was one of the guests of honor at the Mesh commemoration, which begins nearly a
00:53year of events marking the anniversary of the country's liberation.
00:58Residents of Mesh were among the first Dutch citizens to taste post-war freedom at about
01:0310 a.m. on September 12, 1944.
01:06That's when Thayer and other American infantry troops crossed the border from Belgium.
01:11A day later they reached Maastricht, the provincial capital of Limburg and the first Dutch city
01:16to be liberated.
01:18It would take several more months for the whole country to finally be freed.
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