My Corner Online

 

Missouri's National Veterans Memorial

 

We visited Missouri's National Veterans Memorial on January 18, 2020. It is located in Perryville, Missouri, at 1172 Veterans Memorial Pkwy, not far from the downtown intersection of Highways 61 and 51.

It was a beautifuly blue sky day on our way up Highway 55 and I just had to snap this photo.

When I visited, I had not intended on creating this website page, so my focus was on my Uncle Bill who was a Green Beret in Vietnam, so my photos focused on that subject as well. I called him and told him I visited in his honor after I returned home.

 

You can see the entire wall from this photo. It gets lower at each end and tall in the middle.

The names on the wall are inscribed in the order that they were taken from us, so if you are looking for a loved one's name, this helps you find them..

I fell in love witht he reflections along the wall. This looks back at the main buildings. There was a scheduled event that day and we were not able to go inside.

I took a long time at the wall reading random names, reflecting, and playing with the reflections in my camera lens.

There were roses laid down underneath names and this one just happened to be where the note regarding Vietnam veterans.

People had also laid pennies down underneath names. A penny means you visited and want to thank the veteran of the armed forces for their service. A nickel means you trained at boot camp with the deceased. A dime means you served with the soldier. A quarter signifies you were with the soldier when they passed away. This copper penny had some patina that had formed as it corroded in the weather. It made me wonder how long it had sat there honoring a soldier.

It was a really windy day. It would have been a nice day had the wind not made it so cold. However, the plus side of wind is that the flags blew wildely and I sat in the car and watched them for a bit.

This photo was taken of a wall near the buildings and the parking lot. I found it rather special that my Uncle's "green beret special forces" was near the "war in Afghanistan" where my husband's brother had served. Since this photo was taken, my son has been in Afghanistan for a short period of time while serving in Kuwait.