Photo By Sgt. Felicya Adams | Sgt. Leonard Arcos, an El Paso, Texas, native and Sgt. Aziz Mohammed, a New York...... read more read more
JOINT BASE BALAD, Iraq – What makes a memorial so important to soldiers and service members? Is it the type of wood or metal that defines the structure or the paint that causes the memorial to stand for more than just a simple sign?
Soldiers from the 238th Support Maintenance Company, 352nd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 77th Sustainment Brigade, 310th Expeditionary Sustainment Command, and United States Forces-Iraq, came together to honor a fallen soldier, Cpl. Kevin M. Jones.
In September, 2005, Jones died after suffering injuries when an improvised explosive device was detonated by his vehicle near Taqaddum, Iraq. In his memory, a memorial sign was created and mounted outside the Morale, Welfare, and Recreation facility at TQ.
In the last week of April 2011, Brig. Gen. Don S. Cornett, Jr. and Command Sgt. Maj. Debbie Schroder, the commanding general and command sergeant major of the 310th ESC, were contacted about a discolored, worn and weathered memorial sign.
The goal was to return the memorial to Jones’ unit and eventually his parents. “At that point, [CSM] Schroder got heavily engaged in it, and started working with the USF-I staff and others to find the original memorial, and then that started the process of getting it restored and returned to the unit,” said Cornett, an Aurora, Neb., native.
“While we did not know the soldier because he was before our time over here, the unit that he worked for worked for a unit like ours, and we owe it to him to treat him like one of ours.”
The memorial for Jones was brought to Joint Base Balad, Iraq, for the 310th ESC to analyze and see what could be done to restore it before it was transported back to the original unit.
“The memorial is a representation and a tribute to this fallen hero [Cpl. Jones], by the unit and his comrades,” said Schroder, a native of Bloomington, Ill. “This one in particular, when it was found, was deteriorated and weathered, and our idea when we got it was to refurbish it here.”
But, since the years of sun, sand and dust storms had worn away most of the color, it was decided to try to refurbish it would only destroy it more, said Schroder. She enlisted the help of Sgt. Nathan Brooks, woodshop foreman for the 238th SMC, 352nd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, 77th Sustainment Brigade, 310th ESC, and a Tahlequah, Okla., native, and Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lashon White, the allied trade’s officer-in-charge for the 238th SMC, and an Austin, Texas, native, to assist Schroder in refurbishing the memorial.
“So, the memorial was taken over to the 238th [SMC], and I sat down with Chief White and Sgt. Brooks,” said Schroder. “And, Sgt. Brooks came up with the idea of cleaning it up and sealing it in plexiglass.” For Brooks, there was more to rebuilding this memorial than just honoring Jones.
“For a fallen soldier, it was an honor for me to be on the project,” said Brooks. “I lost a battle buddy my last deployment, at [Contingency Operating Base] Adder in 2008, and we built a memorial for him as well.”
When Brooks, White, and the other soldiers from the 238th SMC went to work with the damaged memorial, there was not much that they could do to repair the damaged already done, Brooks said.
“The only thing that we did to the original was clean it up and encase it,” said Brooks. “It was in such bad condition that there was no way to repair it. We kept it as it was and encased it.”
Because the original could not be fixed or repaired, the work was only just beginning for the 238th SMC. Their job was to deliver a memorial to Cpl. Jones’ unit, the 51st Transportation Company, and the 238th SMC was not about to disappoint.
“We wanted it to look exactly like the original, so we carefully took the pieces off, one by one, and we put them onto a piece of one-inch plywood and traced them with pencil and cut them out with our scroll saw to cut them out piece by piece,” said Brooks.
For a project this important, everyone in shop had a job to do for the memorial.
“It took the whole group, and we had other projects going on at the same time, so it wasn’t just everyone focused on that project at once,” said Brooks. “We had six other work orders open at that period of time that we had to also get other stuff out of here as well.”
Schroder pitched in to help match the colors of the original with the new memorial that the 238th and Brooks worked to build.
“I worked with soldiers from Cpl. Jones’ original unit to get photos to see what the original looked like and matched colors, because you could not tell colors from the original because they were so faded,” Schroder said. “With the re-posturing of forces and equipment from country it was difficult to get the colors, so the colors had to be made by mixing different colors together.”
It was Brooks’ great work ethic and determination in the project that earned him the leadership role in an important project like the memorial.
“I gave sergeant Brooks the lead on the project and he did an outstanding job, and taking a personal interest in the project,” said Chief Warrant Officer 3 Lashon White, the allied trade’s officer-in-charge for the 238th SMC, and an Austin, Texas, native. “He was that direct in making sure that this project was not only special for the family, but to him himself.”
The original was completely resealed in plastic glass and three-quarter plywood to try to preserve what is left of it, said White.
Once the new memorial was completed by the 238th SMC, the journey was only half complete. It still had a long way to go before it reached Jones’ parents in Germany. The next stop for the memorial was back to the 51st Trans. Co. in Kuwait.
“When I got the memorial, I read the name and I recognized the soldier that the memorial belonged to,” said Sgt. Leonard Arcos, operations non-commissioned officer with the 51st Trans. Co., and an El Paso, Texas, native. “Back at home station in Germany, we had a couple of pictures of soldiers that have been killed or passed away, and I have seen Corporal Jones’ picture at that time. That brought memories not only for him, but as well as other soldiers that have been killed in this war.”
To Capt. Andrea Green, the company commander of the 51st Trans. Co., and a Wilmington, N.C., native, it is important to get this memorial back to his family — both his Army family and his parents.
“I take it as a great honor,” said Green. “This memorial was done for a soldier who was once in this company, and although these soldiers never knew this person, I just love the camaraderie of the fact that they are taking this very seriously. They want this soldier and the soldier’s family to this memorial to them.”
One of the issues is that the memorial is very large, and weighs about 300 lbs., said Green. It has been one of the stressful parts of the journey that an event has been planned for the memorial to be presented to Jones’ parents, and so the delays of transit are especially nerve wracking.
It’s the determination of dozens of soldiers to make sure the new memorial arrives back in Germany on time.
“I’m not going to stop until I get this memorial where it needs to go,” said Arcos. “If I have to take it myself and escort it, I will. It’s a thing that not a lot of people understand. Not a lot of people get memorials, and since I’m here in this company, the 51st Transportation Company, I think it’s an honor that not only myself, but as the command group, and the whole company that we have this memorial and get to ship it over there.”
With the memorial back in the hands of Jones’ unit, it is on its way back to his family and friends, but the memories of the hard work that the 238th SMC and all the soldiers that offered their time and effort will never be forgotten.
“It was almost personal to these soldiers,” said Cornett. “Some of them have been here before and so the importance of what it represented and … their concern reflects in their quality of work.”
Everyone agreed, memorials like Jones’ are important to the future of the military because we need to understand the sacrifices of the past to make sense of the present and prepare for the future. Memorials are exactly as the name says, memories, more than the sum of the wood, metal and paint used to construct them.
“Every service member that deployed to Iraq left something of themselves in their sweat, blood and tears. These will remain as reminders of their sacrifice longer after our footprints in the sand fade and blow away,” said Schroder.
| Date Taken: | 07.01.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 07.03.2011 02:08 |
| Story ID: | 73168 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE BALAD, IQ |
| Web Views: | 550 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, A soldier is never forgotten, by MSG Matthew Keeler, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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