Dedicated November 11, 2001 - Now an incomplete listing All Wars Memorial
Gratiot County Courthouse
Ithaca, Gratiot County
"All gave some - Some gave all
In honor of the Citizens of Gratiot County who gave their lives fighting for freedom and democracy in conflicts since 1900.
Freedom is not free
November 11, 2001"
Completed just about the time of the September 11th terrorist attacks, this memorial honors those of the community who have served, and died in its defense.
I spent some time researching the names of the fallen, looking for some common element of these men. I found the Alma VFW Post 1454 is named for Les McLean, fallen in France during the Great War. Marine Billy Joe Paige and Army infantryman Raymond Mettert were both lost in Korea and are still listed as Missing In Action. Army Private Erwin Capen also died in Korea, and his childhood friends recall him as a kid that liked to gather his buddies together in summertime to watch movies cast upon the walls of the local grain elevator, or go swimming at the gravel pit - and in fall he loved to hunt upland birds and rabbits. Robert Reichert and Wesley Potter were friends that played Alma City League baseball together, on the Wilhelm's Grocery team. Bob and 12 others of his unit died in VietNam on the same battlefield, on the same day - March 24th, 1968. His friend and teammate, Wes Potter died in combat a few months later, on January 20, 1969.
The common element is that these men were integral parts of their small communities. They all knew and appreciated what it was to be "Farm Boys". They were more familiar with the swimming hole at the nearby creek than the city maintained pool. Their summers were filled with the dust of farm fields and ball fields. Each of their mothers knew all of the kids in the area and would willingly look after any of them as their own. And when the sad news came that a son had died in a field far away, all the mothers wept with dispair as if the loss was their own. And it was, for "Farm Boys" belong to the community that raised them and they are never forgotten.
Sadly, this monument is no longer a complete listing of the dead. Two Gratiot soldiers died in Iraq during the first 12 months of the conflict, and all of us wept along with their mothers.
