In 2017 the Colorado Freedom Memorial Foundation approached the American Battle Monuments Commission with an idea to bring soil from the overseas American cemeteries that they manage back to Colorado. Our heroes lie in 21 of the 26 ABMC cemeteries located in eight countries around the world. It was decided that one cemetery in each country would be selected as a representative of all of the cemeteries. The staff at the ABMC could not have been any more helpful, or grateful that we were creating something so special. At our Colorado Remembers ceremony on May 27, 2017, the soil was officially presented to the Colorado Freedom Memorial with beautiful military precision. The largest memorial display of soil in the U.S. from overseas cemeteries was closer to reality. But how to display it?
Fortunately, whenever we’ve found ourselves in need of someone, or something, it arrives at the perfect moment and that happened with an introduction to Mile High Memorials. After sitting and listening to our story, Emily Easton – a member of the MHM team and a talented young designer- came up with a cenotaph* made of eight Colorado Rose Red Granite pillars; there is one pillar for each cemetery’s soil. In the granite base, a hole is cored and native Colorado soil is mixed with a small amount of the cemetery soil, symbolically returning our fallen to their Home’s Embrace. On the face of the pillars you will find a fact about the cemetery and the number of our fallen that rest there along with some history about the gravesite(s) the soil was taken from. The presence of soil from the final resting place of Colorado’s sons and daughters brings them another step closer to home and it gives their families a chance to be a bit closer to them.
*Cenotaph: a tomblike monument to someone buried elsewhere, especially one commemorating those who died in a war