Even as events are being held, the Veterans Memorial Park is a work in progress. Planning continues for several key monuments. It’s a place to remember the service and sacrifice of war veterans, especially on occasions like Memorial Day. In its first Memorial Day last year, about 250 people were expected to attend. One thousand people showed up.
“The response has been overwhelming. The veterans absolutely love it. And there’s people here visiting all the time,” said Steve Guider who leads the effort.
The cement foundation is already in for a memorial honoring women in the military. Input came from local women who represented three of the five major branches of the military. They came up with a list of what they wanted to include.
‘As you’re at the monument you can walk around the cement and see the history of women in service,” said Guider. “The history is pretty unbelievable and people don’t know about it. I knew very little until I got this list. It’s pretty impressive.”
There’s also a POW/MIA monument planned focusing on missing Minnesota soldiers. It’s an angled wall with hundreds of names etched in granite.
“That’s going to have the name of every Minnesotan missing in action since World War II, which is going to be 1,473 names,” said Guider.
Work is underway now on the statue of a prisoner of war. But the problem is the granite for the wall and the women’s memorial is long overdue.
“The granite comes from India, it’s the only place in the world where you can get this black granite and they were shut down for quite awhile because of COVID,” so we still have not received the granite yet,” said Guider.
Guider hopes the pieces will arrive this summer. He says there are other memorials planned, but they can only be built as donations are received.
“I was hoping that as we get the monuments sponsored and put in, then people will start seeing the progress of it and hopefully they will keep donating to help finish it.”
Guider says the cost of completing the project has gone up. It now totals about $1.3 million, including monuments that are already in place and paid for.
The Memorial Day program is planned for Monday, May 30 at 2:00 pm.
