"I've seen that happen, and it just hurts," she told me. "It hurts your heart, it hurts your soul " we need to remember these people." She looked across the broad field, a thick coil of labels hanging from one wrist. "And we need to remember them not as a group of people, but as specific people."
Prepping for Memorial Day
For a few years now, Pocatello's "Field of Heroes" has been too big a job for John Rogers to handle with just a handful of friends. Now Bannock County is lending a hand, and whole platoons of volunteers plow into a full week of preparatory work so the field will be ready when the long Memorial Day weekend starts.
(Photo: Mike Taibbi / NBC News)
Pocatello, Idaho's annual memorial, 'Field of Heroes,' honors each of the dead service members who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Scout troops, high school kids, and senior citizens pitch in, alongside strangers who are moved to lend a hand. Big tents with generator-fired heaters warm the volunteers; the local Sign-A-Rama shop makes and donatesthe waterproof labels; and professional surveyors measure the field and line up the rows so the matrix of crosses looks the way it should. In the middle of the Snake River Plain, in the shadow of the foothills of the Rockies, more than a full brigade of the honored dead appear in silent and precise formation.
The visitors come from all over the West, bonding over a patriotism that's as humbling as it is palpable, and understanding each other's tears. In fact, there's nothing like it anywhere in the country, though the feelings generated by a visit to this Pocatello yearly shrine are like those that arise from a famous national shrine:
"Arlington Cemetery is a long way from here," said Pocatello Mayor Brian Blad. "There's a special spirit there " but you come here, you can feel that same spirit."
"It's immense now," Rogers said, a touch of wistfulness in his voice as he surveyed what his simple idea had turned into. "But it's not just a field of crosses"you can come out and read each name"the dates, the places they died"and if you want you can learn their stories.
"It's important, that we don't forget the young people we've sent to war."
The old soldier smiled. "Oh yeah," he said, pointing to the flags stretched by the breeze on the periphery of the field. Each flag was accompanied by a yellow streamer. "I still make the printed yellow ribbons for every local soldier coming home. I'll keep doing that."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
