At our meeting on January 23rd, we thank Paul Hoppe, a member of the Kanabec County Veterans Memorial Committee for bringing us up-to-date on their progress.
Learn more about the Kanabec County Veterans Memorial. From the Kanabec County Times:
“The Lee Goldsmith American Legion Post No. 201 and Ogilvie American Legion Post 640 have unveiled designs for the memorial, which will be located at 203 Barker Street in Mora, just north of the Post Office. The 3-D drawing of the memorial — completed by Sam Smith —shows a proposed 40-by-80-foot building that will house static displays; space for the American Legion, Boy Scouts and others to meet; and room for the Kanabec County Veterans Service Office, if the CVSO is amenable to moving to the new space.
The rendering also shows the memorial itself, which includes the Walls of Honor, black granite bricks that will reflect the names of all military veterans in Kanabec County and elsewhere.
“They don’t have to be veterans just from Kanabec County,” said Legion member Al Skramstad, one of the planners of the memorial. Each 6-by-12-inch block will display the name and service information of one veteran, and the bricks each cost $300. The black granite will be locally sourced and look similar to that used in the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C.
Lost but not forgotten
At the center of the memorial will be a marker showing the 34 names of military personnel from Kanabec County who were killed in action in World War I, World War II, the Korean Conflict and Vietnam.
“We haven’t lost anyone in all the other conflicts,” Skramstad noted. “Kanabec County has been very fortunate.”
The United States flag will stand at attention in the middle of the memorial on a 55-foot flagpole, with the flags of each of the six military branches — the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Space Force — on the perimeter.
In front of the memorial to those lost in conflict will be the statue “Silent Battle,” for which veteran Brian Zimmerman posed. The sculpture depicts the struggle of soldiers and raises awareness of post-traumatic stress disorder and shows a grieving soldier holding the dog tags of his fallen peers. Zimmerman lost his battle with PTSD in August 2021. Continue reading the Times article here >