For the past thirty years I have been on several boards involved with projects honoring our armed Forces. Several Memorials around the country have been built and established to honor the fallen and wounded.
Under the leadership of Richard Leandri our mentor memorials were built at Ft. Benning, MacDill AFB, The City Park at Largo Florida, and these are reminders to those that freedom is not free, it’s a very costly sacrifice.
Good news, this January a new Memorial will be presented in the Florida City of Inverness. The city has graciously provided the resources for a new city park located strategically in a high traffic area where it will be seen and experienced by all. It is close to the Florida National Cemetery located in Bushnell Florida.
Burial in a national cemetery is open to all members of the armed forces who have met a minimum active duty service requirement and were discharged under conditions other than dishonorable. A Veteran’s spouse, widow or widower, minor dependent children, and under certain conditions, unmarried adult children with disabilities may also be eligible for burial. Eligible spouses and children may be buried even if they predecease the Veteran. Members of the reserve components of the armed forces who die while on active duty or who die while on training duty, or were eligible for retired pay, may also be eligible for burial.
A EULOGY IN BRONZE
By
Sunday, May 29, 2016 at 5:53 pm e
Even before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the plans for a memorial to honor U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) troops who died serving their country were in the works.
Ellie Scarfone and Al Jacobson, members of the U.S. Central Command Memorial Foundation, a nonprofit, private citizens organization, unveil a set of bronze statues they are presenting to the city of Inverness to use in a permanent display on the grounds of the Inverness Government Center.
Designed and funded by the nonprofit, private citizens organization U.S. Central Command Memorial Foundation, it was to be at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa. They broke ground in 2003 and a set of bronze statues were commissioned and completed in 2005 — and then put in storage at a foundry in Colorado for 10 years.
Fast-forward 15 years and $1.2 million later and the memorial at MacDill is completed — but because of a number of reasons, including post-Sept. 11 security measures that restrict the public from easily entering the base, the project has been scrapped, as far as the foundation is concerned. So, what to do with the bronze statues? And what to do about the foundation’s desire to honor CENTCOM troops?
Enter the city of Inverness. “After 10 years in storage — No. 1, the foundry wanted the statues moved, and No. 2, we’ve been trying to find a place that would embrace them and want to do something with them,” said Ellie Scarfone, president of the U.S. Central Command Memorial Foundation.
“Last year, I approached Frank DiGiovanni and asked if he would like to use them in the community. He and his team have embraced it and came up with a concept that I think will be well-appreciated and well-seen — I’m thrilled.” Recently, Scarfone, fellow foundation board members David Troup and Al Jacobson and Inverness City Manager DiGiovanni met to unveil the statues and talk about their final destination on the grounds of the Inverness Government Center.
The statues, made by Colorado Springs-based sculptor Scott Stearman, depict two soldiers, modeled by actual soldiers from Fort Carson near Colorado Springs: Spc. Ontario Washington and Sgt. Amy Perkins. The sculpture of Washington shows him kneeling to remember his fallen brethren, his eyes downcast and his expression stoic but pained.
“His boots are worn, his CamelBak is empty, he’s holding his gloves in resolve,” Scarfone said. Perkins’ hand rests on Washington’s shoulder. In the process of modeling for the sculpture, Perkins, a veteran of two tours in Iraq, revealed that she had 7-year-old twin daughters and a fiancé who lost his life in the line of duty.
“In her helmet — troops typically put photos of their loved ones in their helmet, so we have pictures of her twin daughters and a picture of her fiancé, who had just been killed,” Scarfone said. The original concept was to have the two soldiers looking at a wall of names of those who had lost their lives in the Global War on Terror, but foundation members realized “the wall would never end.”
When the project began in 2001, the U.S. troops killed in the ongoing war numbered several hundred, Jacobson said. That number now nears 7,000, according to the Department of Defense; more than 52,000 troops have been wounded.
Instead, the figures are looking at a battlefield cross: the rifle, boots and helmet of a fallen brother or sister in arms arranged in a memorial to their life and service. “The fact that these statues are taken from real life — it’s a very powerful statement,” Jacobson said.
The city plans to mount the statues in the plaza outside the government center in downtown Inverness, atop a granite platform illuminated in relief by uplighting.
“I’m humbled, moved, blown away,” DiGiovanni said at the unveiling. “This is an incredible presentation of the effects of war, and these are lifelike, real-life people brought from the battlefield to Inverness in a memorialized manner. This is incredibly impressive.”
“I had originally thought it should go to Liberty Park because the 9/11 memorial is there and it’s a larger, more open space,” Scarfone said. “But with the proposed changes to the area, this makes much better sense. It’s going to be very pretty. … Sometimes it’s wonderful that things don’t go the way we plan them, because now we get to have them here.”
Contact Chronicle reporter Nancy Kennedy at 352-564-2927, nkennedy@chronicleonline.com or via Twitter at @nancykchronicle.
DISRESPECT IS NOT PRESIDENTIAL, WHAT OUR
The mash-up of symbols couldn’t have been more stark: a Muslim immigrant extolling the virtues of American liberty while holding his pocket copy of the Constitution, and his wife, struggling to contain her emotions, standing silently by his side, wearing a soft-blue hijab.
The moment at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday night upstaged the debut speech by the first woman to be a major party’s nominee for president and confronted a vast television audience with a riveting and, for some, jarring blend of messages.
Here were the parents of a fallen US Army captain, still deep in mourning and palpably proud to be Americans; and here were Muslim immigrants from Pakistan, keenly aware of their uncomfortable place at the center of this year’s presidential campaign; and here was a pocket Constitution, in recent years a popular giveaway for conservative and evangelical groups; and here was a hijab, the Muslim head covering that has become a shorthand for the debate over Islam’s place in the Western world.
The overwhelming response to the appearance by Khizr and Ghazala Khan reflected the cultural and political divide that has dominated American discourse since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many people took Khizr Khan’s lecture to Donald Trump about liberty and xenophobia as a statement about what patriotism and American identity really mean. Many others took the speech as a partisan blast (The Good Old Prejudice Boys) but nonetheless it was a powerful plea from parents mourning the death of an American soldier.
THE LOWLIFE T-RUMP REALLY IS
Throughout his life, Trump has taken pride in never backing down, always hitting back harder than he’s been hit and generally seeking publicity on the theory that all press is good press. But throughout this year’s rules-smashing campaign, Trump has reserved his most outrageous rhetorical blasts for prominent people and trust they will turn the dogs of war on this couple.
When Trump rejected the heroism of McCain (R-Ariz.), who as a young Navy officer spent more than five harrowing years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese, or when Trump characterized Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly’s aggressive questioning in a debate as “blood coming out of her wherever,” he took on people who were accustomed to the rough and tumble of the public fray.
This time, Trump targeted the parents of an Army captain who was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq. Neither the father, a consultant on immigration law, nor his wife had been on the national political stage before. But the Khans didn’t shy from the battle. They spent Sunday elaborating on their view of Trump as, in Khizr Khan’s words on morning talk shows on NBC and CNN, “A black soul” who is leading a campaign “of hatred, of derision, of dividing us.”
HIS WEAK REPLY AGAINST A GREAT AMERICAN
Trump, for his part, said Saturday that Khan had “no right to stand in front of millions of people and claim I have never read the Constitution.” At the convention, Khan had reached into his jacket pocket to pull out his copy of it, which he says he usually keeps with him, and addressed Trump: “I will gladly lend you my copy. In this document, look for the words liberty and equal protection of law. ”
Khan said the Constitution he waved before the cameras Thursday night came out of the boxes of 99-cent pocket versions that he orders from the American Bar Association to hand out to fourth-year cadets graduating from the University of Virginia’s ROTC program.
Every year since their son’s death, the Khans have invited the cadets to their house for hot dogs and burgers, to honor their son, a graduate of the program, and to give the students their first exposure to a Muslim home, to see “how similar it is to their own,” Khan said. “They’d feel like this is our aunt or uncle’s home. And I have cards from them, understanding the gesture of giving them the Constitution, because they were getting ready to take an oath to that Constitution.”
But Trump — who famously said in January that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters” — remains confident that what would be fatal breaches of political etiquette in most elections will only cement his reputation as a fearless truth-teller.
Just this Sunday Fareed Zakaria whom I have the deepest respect for as a journalist in a land of faux news referred and called “The Donald or is it Donald the Dork”, a BULLSHIT ARTIST. I have in millions of hours of paying attention to what has been said ever heard that expression used.
The more outrageous the comments, the more some voters will conclude that Trump is the candidate who would break some china and get things done, said Mark Burnett, who produced “The Apprentice,” Trump’s popular TV reality show. “People want to hear the unvarnished, that same style that he showed on ‘The Apprentice,’ ” Burnett said in an interview earlier this year, “the ability to speak his mind clearly and not tone down his voice in a politically correct, TV way.”
I simply rebuke Burnett and make it clear as one who has been with those families who have suffered the supreme sacrifice and lost a loved one stick to your reality TV shows which are entertaining (faked at times) and let the cards play out and you might realize T-RUMP is nothing more than a rich obnoxious prick. I apologize, I should have said “penis”.
And as far as T-RUMP making his points clear, Adolf’s supporters said the same thing. Some credited to a head wound Adolf received in WWI affecting his thinking, we believe T-RUMP gets his visions from sniffing hair spray.
LATEST AND UNBELIEVABLE
Without setting foot on a battlefield, Donald Trump said he received a Purple Heart medal on Tuesday at his rally in Ashburn, Virginia, from a retired lieutenant colonel and supporter. “I said to him, is that like the real one, or is that a copy?” moments after taking the stage at a local high school. Trump recounted the exchange, remarking that the man, who he identified as retired Lt. Col. Louis Dorfman said, "That's my real Purple Heart. I have such confidence in you."
"And I said, Man, that’s like big stuff. I always wanted to get the Purple Heart," Trump said. “This was much easier.”
Trump then invited Dorfman to appear onstage with him on camera, as the two posed for photographs and Trump flashed a thumbs-up before placing the Purple Heart back in his suit jacket pocket. Trump then told his audience that he had asked Dorfman to speak, but that the man had told him, "No, sir. I’d just like you to keep saying what you’ve been saying.”
The Republican nominee has been under fire in recent days for his attacks on the Gold Star family of a fallen Muslim U.S. Army captain who spoke at last week's Democratic National Convention to denounce Trump's comments on immigration.
Following Trump’s statement, NBC reporter Katy Tur tweeted that she had spoken with Dorfman and that he said the medal he gave to Trump was a copy of the one awarded to him. Dorfman was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded in action in Iraq in 2007.
I cannot repeat what fellow purple Heart recipients had to say to T-RUMP or Dorfman. It was not pretty. Some suggested he get the Purple Heart posthumously.