In the 1930s, the U.S. government took thousands of women whose sons or husbands were lost in World War I to visit the foreign cemeteries where they were buried. For many of these Gold Star Mothers, it was their first trip outside their own communities. This look at the history of the Gold Star program outlines how mothers wielded political power to get Congress to approve the pilgrimages, examines how segregation on the trips contributed to the decision of many black voters to leave the Republican Party, and follows several contemporary Gold Star Mothers on their own journeys to Vietnam to see where their loved ones died.