
In 1945, nine-year-old June Laird saw U.S. Army soldiers ascending the 22 steps to her family’s home in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. They had come to deliver the news that her older brother, U.S. Army Air Forces Lt. Robert J. Barrat, had been reported killed in action over Germany. Lt. Barrat, the third eldest of six children, was only 20 years old when he died. What June did not know, at the time, was that her brother — laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery (ANC) on May 27, 2026 — had died as a hero, whose brave actions during World War II inspired a German town to dedicate a monument to him and his bomber crew.