4,700 Crosses Mark Soldiers' Deaths
Author(s): Dennis Taylor
Original Post: 4,700 crosses on Carmel Beach mark soldiers' deaths
Type: News Article
Date: 05/26/2009
Among the 4,700 crosses placed in neat rows early Monday on Carmel Beach was one bearing the name of U.S. Army Sgt. First Class Richard J. Henkes II of Portland, Ore., who was 32 years old when he died in action on Sept. 3, 2006.
Somebody attached a tiny, pink wildflower, part of the natural beach foliage, to either side of his name placard — a small, subtle statement that Henkes was a person who meant a great deal to someone.
The crosses, placed on the beach for Memorial Day without fanfare or advance publicity, represent every man and woman who died in action in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are soldiers from the U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, Bulgaria, Poland, The Netherlands, Italy, Thailand, Denmark, Romania and numerous other nations.
The crosses were handmade by eight U.S. Marines and the two men who organized the memorial, Cachagua resident Michael Jones and U.S. Army Capt. D.J. Skelton, a company commander at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey.
Another 25 volunteers helped with the logistics of placing them in neat rows on the beach, a process that began at 5a.m.
"This isn't a protest, it's a memorial. That's why we don't tell anybody about it in advance," said Jones, who describes himself as anti-war and pro-soldier. "This is all about the service people who have fallen. It's not about publicity. It is what it is."
Each of the stakes was hand-painted by the eight Marines in two 14-hour days. They opted not to use a paint-sprayer, deciding it would diminish the sacrifice that had been made by their colleagues.
Each of the typed placards included the name, rank, age, branch of service, hometown and date of death of the fallen soldier.
Dozens of the names were familiar to Skelton, not only from the time he spent at West Point, but from the battlefield. He was 27 years old, commanding a platoon of about 50 men in the second battle of Fallujah, Iraq, in 2006 when a rocket-propelled grenade struck him in the chest.
The injuries he sustained were massive. He spent months in a medically induced coma and was in the hospital for about a year as he tried to rehabilitate to the point where he could function again. He lost his left eye, the use of his left arm, and much of the function of his right leg.
And then, he did an unusual thing. He not only opted to stay on active duty, but asked to be sent back to his unit.
"Up until then, almost all severely wounded soldiers had been out-processed out of the army," said Skelton, who grew up in a small town in South Dakota and was the first person in his family to enter the military. "I became one of the first severely wounded soldiers to stay aboard."
No longer able to function as an infantry soldier, Skelton was redeployed with a rear-detachment unit, supporting the men who were forward deployed.
"I wanted to go back and be with my peers, be with soldiers, which I love," he said. "I wanted to continue to serve anybody who wears a uniform."
He later served two years at the Pentagon as a senior adviser to the secretary of Defense, spending much of his time in the cabinet in the House and Senate and working with the secretary of the Veterans Administration.
"We were trying to better understand this generation's population of veterans and wounded veterans, what their needs are, and how we can better adapt and adjust to a new-age soldier."
Standing on Carmel Beach, surveying the thousands of crosses that represent his fallen colleagues, was an emotional experience for Skelton, who teamed up with Jones to produce a similar display on Memorial Day 2006, when there were 2,485 crosses on the beach.
The sacrifice those men and women made left him philosophical about the reality of war.
"As a soldier, we should never forget that if we're going to protect the way we live, and protect it with an all-volunteer force, we need to go anywhere you want," he said. "We're not going to debate whether it's right or wrong to do that, and I don't think the nation wants those of us in uniform to debate whether we should go."
Jones said the process of creating the crosses and placing them in the sand has an unusual effect on the people who are doing it.
"At some point, they stop being stakes and they start being people to you," he said. "When we have to take them off the beach at the end of the day, a lot of the older people who live here — the beach walkers — come over and help us. And everybody cries. We all cry."
Jones said the purpose of the memorial was to raise awareness of the reality of what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"People should understand what it costs to do the things we do as a nation, and we just wanted to sort of present the bill," he said. "There are sacrifices being made that need to be recognized."
Related:
Topic(s): Iraq, Regional Security Challenges, Terrorism & Irregular Warfare, U.S. Military Forces & Operations
Project(s): Afghanistan, The Iraq Inheritance, Veterans' Health
People: DJ Skelton
