GREENE: Veteran’s Freedom Walkway Memorial receives Hometown Pride Award
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Lions Club Members Hugh Allen (left) and John Quandt (right) presented Veteran’s Freedom Walkway Memorial Chairman Bernie Faul with the Hometown Pride Award for the month of March for the two additional stones that were added last fall. (Carmen Ensinger/Greene Prairie Press)
By Carmen Ensinger
The final two stones of the Veteran’s Freedom Walkway Memorial were installed last fall making a grand total of seven memorial stones dedicated to Greene County veterans, past and present.
It might be a few months after the fact, but the Carrollton Lions Club presented the Memorial with the Hometown Pride Award last week.
The two new stones contain 300 additional names on the back and elaborate engravings on the front of the stones, which are made of a rare black granite from Europe.
These engravings were chosen by Bernie Faul, the Veterans Freedom Walkway Memorial Chairman and the one who spearheaded the project.
“One of them has an American flag with an eagle flying in front of it and it has the military oath that all military personnel have to say when they join the military,” she said. “Then, on the other one, I got to thinking how the kids in school no longer say the Pledge of Allegiance anymore and so I wanted that on the other stone.”
But she wanted a little something more than just the wording of the Pledge of Allegiance on the front.
“I told them I wanted a picture of the United States, but I wanted it to look like a flag,” Faul said. “And I have to say that they nailed it perfectly – they did an absolutely awesome job.”
Below the American flag in the shape of the United States is the definition of a veteran.
“There are actually several different definitions of a veteran, but there is one that is my favorite,” Faul said. “That is the one that says, ‘A Veteran is someone who, at one point in one’s life, wrote a blank check made payable to The United States of America for an amount ‘up to and including my life.’ That is Honor and there are way too many people in this Country who no longer understand it.’”
Faul said these two stones are the final addition to this Memorial.
“If anyone wants to add more stones in the future, they will have to expand the Memorial,” she said. “Because when we devised this Memorial, we only put in footings for these seven stones.”
Those seven stones sit in six feet of concrete underneath the concrete pad.
“When we planned this, we set it up for the five original stones and these two additional stones,” Faul said. “So, we don’t have any more foundations to put them on.”
