The evening of May 26 climaxed a special and memorable Memorial Day for many of the citizens of Libby, Montana. They converged on Libby’s Riverfront Park under threatening skies, a slight rain and a brisk wind to witness and to be a part of the dedication of the Lincoln County Veterans Memorial.

The overwhelming generosity of many local businesses, groups and just plain folks had come together in spite of our lagging and depressed economy to muster the funds to make the vision of a Veterans Memorial a reality here in Libby. As most Libby residents are aware, the memorial began with a conversation between a few military veterans, several meetings later it resulted in a conceptual drawing of the proposed memorial by local artist Todd Berget and finally the creation of the actual statue for the memorial by Scott Lennard.

Guest speakers assembled under the six-foot bronze lifelike sculpture of two WWII soldiers in battle. The sculpture is surrounded at the base by a circle of hundreds of bricks with inscriptions bearing the names of local and out-of-town military personnel who had served or are currently serving in our country in the U.S. military. The bricks were purchased by many, many U.S. serviceman and women and so many others to raise funds to erect this beautiful memorial.

The Veterans Memorial area itself was a most impressive sight with all the flags and emblems representing all of the various branches of our U.S. military services. The dedication started with an Invocation by Pastor Phillip Alspaw. Speakers were Lincoln County Commissioner Tony Berget, Sr. Vice Commander Dean House of the VFW, and U.S. Army combat veteran Terry Andreessen, vice president of the committee that made the memorial a reality.

Featured guest speaker was former Montana Sen. Conrad Burns. The senator made sure that  those in attendance knew that he was a U.S. Marine. Those who were at this event and have ever heard Sen. Burns speak while he was on the campaign trail here in Libby years ago could not miss the fact that he is still in fine form and still has “a fire in his belly.”

With his never-ending command of “Montana Speak” and humor, Sen. Burns gave those in attendance a brief history of his early growing up years, he noted our own nation’s early internal problems and conflicts, and then reflected on some of his own experiences while on active duty overseas as a U.S. Marine. He closed his remarks by praising the folks of Libby and the Veterans Memorial committee.

The dedication ceremony ended with the ever haunting refrain of “Taps.”

Sincere thanks to the committee and all who were involved and played a part in this Veterans Memorial project for all their untiring devotion of time and effort in bringing this vision of a Veterans Memorial into the beautiful place of tribute, reverence  and remembrance that it represents to all who will view it.

A fitting ending to the dedication ceremony was a beautiful rainbow that was visible to all who left Riverfront Park after the dedication was over.

John Alex, U.S. Air Force (Ret.), is a resident of Libby.